Day: July 31, 2021

As digital marketers, we have all been there — stuck on what to do next and trying to reinvent the wheel. We know what it is like to run out of ideas, to try every strategy, to test every new feature until we get to that point where we have done it all. And then what?

What if I tell you that in order to come out on top, you don’t need to reinvent things? What if you can try something new while barely changing the way you do things now? What I am talking about is keeping in place all the strategies you know work, along with all the content you know sells, and then simply translating them into the second-most spoken language in the United States.

Español.

Why should we focus on Spanish over all other languages?

This is a very fair question as there are hundreds of languages spoken in households all across the United States. Over 20% of Americans are bilingual and this segment of the population has more than doubled in the last 30 years. Additionally, the percentage of languages spoken at home is on the rise, from Spanish to Tagalog.

With so many language options to choose from, the reason I am focusing on Spanish is because, besides English, it is the most commonly-spoken language in the United States.

And since we are on the subject of bilingual speakers, I have a myth to bust. Most marketers believe that bilingual strategies will only be effective in major metropolitan areas. For this reason, it is not uncommon to see billboard and public transit ads in other languages posted in New York City or Los Angeles. However, these same billboard and public transit ads are not utilized outside major cities and, furthermore, are rarely used in digital marketing. But when you look at the map of the United States and evaluate the number who speak a foreign language at home, you can find pockets of speakers in every state. In fact, the state with the largest percentage increase of foreign language speakers at home was Nevada with a 1,088% increase since 1980. 

The Hispanic population is made up of 60.5 million people which comprises nearly 20% of the country’s population. The United States has more Spanish speakers than every country other than Mexico. Hispanics are the fastest growing segment of the U.S. population; for every two people added to the population, one is Hispanic.

Hispanics represent 20 different nationalities, but the U.S. population has a large percentage coming from Mexico, Cuba, and Puerto Rico.

The Hispanic consumer is very important to the U.S. economy because they control $1.5 trillion in buying power. This is up 212% from the last decade! Not only that, their consumption of products and services has increased by 42% in the same time period. Additionally, studies show that 66% of U.S. Hispanics pay attention to online ads and — more importantly — 93% take action after seeing the ads online, rendering them an incredible asset to the world of digital marketing. 

The real question we need to be asking ourselves is, if they represent such a significant portion of our online population, why is no one talking to them online? They represent a significant portion of the population, they have money, and they have a big desire to spend it. 

Why should digital marketers invest in Spanish?

 

Let’s dig into how to actually implement the strategy (that is not technically a strategy).

Setting up a campaign correctly

Like with any experiment, we need to follow the scientific method and separate our variables. These campaigns should be treated as a test and each language should be tested out separately. The test budget I recommend is 20-30% of what you would normally spend in a campaign. In terms of their setup, there are a few nuances we want to watch out for when considering bilingual campaigns. In the language setting, I like to add the language I am testing, as well as the main language of the country; in this case, English.

Another important thing to consider when setting up ad scheduling, is time zones. Google Ads and Bing Ads treat this feature very differently. In Google, we are looking at the time zone in which the account is created and, in Bing, the time zone of the end user. If you are testing bilingual and international campaigns, make sure you are not scheduling them during times your target audience is sleeping.

The rest is quite easy because you have already done the heavy lifting and testing. You will keep the structure the same and begin by simply selecting a few of your best-performing ad groups, or 30-50 of the top-performing keywords.

Translation

Translating ads is costly unless you can do it yourself. I know that not everyone has the knowledge or confidence to do it on their own, so I usually recommend a free tool like Google Translate. Even as a native speaker, I use this tool to double check my own work.

Free tools like Google Translate do a great job, but can be very time-consuming if a large amount of keywords or ad copy translation is needed. One of my favorite hacks in Google Sheets is using the Google Translate function. GoogleTranslate allows you to, in seconds, translate everything efficiently.

I always suggest having a native Spanish speaker double check your work if possible because, like all languages, the meaning and words can vary greatly, depending where you are from. 

I attended the Women in Search and Digital Marketing Speak My Language Conference and learned that the word we use in the United States for pants is not the same everywhere else. If you were to use that same word in the United Kingdom, you would instead be referring to underpants.If you are a clothing retailer in the United Kingdom, this is vital information. You could be bidding on a word with incorrect intent, missing out on all the good clicks by not using the proper term — trousers. That is just one example of the importance of using the correct verbiage in a multilingual country. Within the Spanish language, 20 countries are represented, and so a term as simple as bus may be completely different elsewhere, depending on your country of origin.

Even if you do not have a Spanish coworker or friend to assist you, there are some noteworthy places to ask for help. Twitter and Reddit have large communities with people from all over the world to help translate or double check your work.

Important Ad Copy Considerations

Crafting the correct ad copy is important when reaching any audience, but crafting the perfect message in a language that may not be your own is a Herculean task. Thankfully, the Spanish speakers in the United States are an easy audience to work with. Though they are used to consuming their online media in English, the majority are at home speaking purely Spanish, or at least bilingually, with low expectations in regards to the quality of the online content. Fifty-two percent are using English browser settings, not as a preference, but because they have no other choice. 

When viewing ads, 88% of Hispanics will pay attention regardless of language when it includes an aspect of their culture. Obviously, the best practice here is to translate your ads 100%, but I also believe it is ok to translate 50% or even to not translate at all. The goal we are trying to achieve here is to show searchers quality information the first time they try looking for it. In the SERP, it is ok to have an English ad pointing to a Spanish keyword, because you will most likely be one of the few trying to fight for that space and make it to the top. It is better to have a well-written English ad than a Spanish ad with mistakes.

Mobile 

Hispanics spend two more hours per week using their smartphones than all other demographics in the United States. Having a mobile plan is key to reach this audience. In fact, 68% of Hispanics who are searching on Google do it on a mobile device. Bidding higher on mobile, crafting mobile-specific ads, and creating Call-Only Campaigns could prove very successful as a bilingual mobile strategy.

YouTube

Advertising on YouTube is an essential part of reaching the Hispanic audience of the United States. Why? Because according to Neilsen, more Hispanics watch YouTube than any other cable network. When creating video content, we have good news — there is no need to translate these ads (which is a much more complex endeavor than text translation). Sixty percent of Hispanics watch content in English the majority of the time. Don’t forget to award yourself bonus points for including aspects of Hispanic culture to videos targeted to this audience!

What I find is interesting is how 75% of Hispanics use YouTube to learn about new products and to make informed purchasing decisions.

As you can see, Spanish PPC is a powerful way to connect with new users without having to break your formula or the bank. It also has another huge benefit — it opens the door to making searching online accessible for all. By simply translating or including elements of a different culture into keywords and ads, we are extending an open invitation for people to feel comfortable and catered to when searching online.

So, you’re wondering why SEO does not work for you and your website, right?

Haven’t you heard?! SEO is dead!

Dead from all the bad jokes about it.

Of course, SEO isn’t actually dead, but there are a few reasons why SEO might not be working for you and your site.

 

We’ve gathered 14 top of mind reasons why your SEO might not be working for your website.

Let’s go through them and see if something rings a bell.

 

1. You don’t stick to the basics
2. You don’t really understand what SEO is
3. SEO just doesn’t fit your business/idea
4. Your expectations are too high
5. You’re not patient enough
6. Your budget is too small
7. You’re not focusing on mobile
8. You don’t analyze and you underestimate your competition
9. You’ve skipped keyword research
10. You’re not prioritizing the right things
11. You’re ignoring structure, click depth & internal linking
12. You’re ignoring backlinks
13. You don’t understand your audience
14. You’ve externalized to the wrong SEO agency
15. You’re not monitoring your results

 

 

1. You don’t stick to the basics

 

When people say SEO has some relation with magic, what they actually mean is that it’s very complex.

 

It would take several very long articles for me to fully explain how it works. 

Yes, it implies user experience, link profile, content strategy, referral traffic or marketing campaigns. And all these SEO efforts might seem very complex.

 

However, SEO is more simple that you might think, in some ways.

 

In a nutshell, it’s the multitude of criteria which makes a website the best result for a particular keyword, in the sense that it satisfies the user’s intent.

 

What you must understand is that Google isn’t trying to rank websites based on some checklist.

 

Sure, it follows a list of criteria, but it also looks at historical data in the SERP and since Rank  Brain has got involved, machine learning really made things a lot more complicated.

It’s hard for us humans to keep pace with how Google decides what actually makes a web page ‘the best one’. At this point… I’m not sure even the makers themselves have any idea how things work anymore.

 

So, instead focusing on the latest trends and techniques, try to focus more on the basics. Do them well and do them consistently.

 

Sure, SEO and digital marketing experts like Neil Patel and Brian Dean always try new techniques and tweaks, but one thing’s for sure: They haven’t stopped posting!

 

Being consistent is difficult, but it’s also the key to success!

 

2. You don’t really understand what SEO is

 

So, we know Google is trying to rank the best page.

 

But what does that actually mean?

 

Does it mean the page with the most targeted keywords? The page with the best links? The page with the best content?
Who wins the Google top organic results?

 

It’s the page that best satisfies the user’s intent. And in some cases, the website alone can’t do it!

 

Let’s say you want to rank high in the search engines for a very competitive eCommerce keyword. Well… if your offer isn’t good enough, you probably won’t.

 

If you want to rank for “shoes” but you only have 3 products in your store, you won’t be getting far.

 

If you want to rank for “cheap” but your prices aren’t cheap, again, you probably won’t have much success with it even if you optimize your website in this direction.

 

Moreover, many people don’t understand that high rankings within search results also reflect the quality of a business, at least to some extent.

 

For example, bad reviews on Google My Business can affect your local SEO rankings and your business listing and people don’t leave bad reviews because your SEO campaign sucks.

 

Sure, you can invest in search marketing and pump links into a website and get it to the top, but if the business itself doesn’t have the necessary infrastructure to properly satisfy clients (quality, shipping, support), the results won’t last for long!

 

I’ve seen sites pumping bad links and rushing to the top, only to fall ungracefully a short time after because they did not meet their user’s expectations.

 

3. SEO just doesn’t fit your business/idea

 

Another thing you should consider is that your business type should match SEO.

 

Usually, if you want to promote a short-term trending product, such as the fidget spinner, investing big and long term on SEO might not be the right choice!

 

 

Furthermore, if you need a quick turnover and you’re just getting started… SEO might not be the right channel for you, and you should look for PPC advertising or social media remarketing instead.

 

However, it’s not always a matter of SEO vs PPC. Usually, they go well together.

 

4. Your expectations are too high

 

The higher the expectations, the bigger the disappointment.

 

To be satisfied with your results, you’ll need to have realistic goals.

 

With SEO, you can’t really expect top rankings and huge websites traffic in a month or two, if your domain has just been registered.

 

You can’t expect to outrank the online presence of a strong competitor with thousands of links, with a tight budget and no scaling even if you apply some good SEO tactics.

 

In some cases, the entire competition might be way out of your league. That’s when you have to dig in deeper, to find those keyword opportunities that are easier to rank for.

 

You should still start with SEO as soon as possible, but start small. Look for keywords with lower competition and build your way up before saying that SEO does not work for you. 

 

5. You’re not patient enough

 

Sometimes you just need to be more patient.

 

Most SEOs will tell you upfront that it can take from 6 to 12 months to see the top positions.

 

 

Some will claim that they can get you to the #1 spot in the first month. It’s probably false and you should stay away from them.

 

You should always see progress in the first month.

 

If it’s a new website, that might be as little as the first pages getting indexed.

 

So, if you’re not yet in the position you’ve wished for but have increased in rankings compared to the previous month, just give it a little more time. You’re on the right path.

 

If you want to find out more about why it takes so long to rank in Google and other search engines and what you can do to speed things up, check out this article.

 

6. Your budget is too small

 

Actually… you CAN have high expectations. But for the right budget.

 

If your budget is too small, you might not be able to do everything you want and you might end up saying that SEO does not work for you. 

 

SEO includes things like: good server, fixing technical SEO issues, keyword research, content marketing, social media, investing in links and many others.

 

If you want to scale it up quickly and efficiently, the truth is that you will need a substantial investment.

 

 

Clients often ask me: “Why is it that SEO takes so long?”

 

Sure, part of the answer is: “Because Google.”

 

However, I’m always confident I can speed things up by scaling.

 

But why does scaling speed up the process, you may ask?

 

Well… it’s pretty straight forward:

 

• More content = more keywords covered faster
• More links = faster higher authority
• More monitoring = better / faster tweaking
• More programmers = faster site, more useful features, better UX, etc.

 

But all those above = more money.

 

Are you developing the content for 5 categories per month? Pump that to 10. Are you consolidating the site’s structure with 2 monthly blog posts? Up it to blog posts. Are you securing 1-2 links per month? Make that 5 and so on.

 

Many people get into SEO because they can use time instead of money to drive traffic to their websites and businesses.

 

However, time can’t scale things up. Only money can. If you want to rank faster, you’ll need to outsource some work.

 

7. You’re not focusing on Mobile

 

I know, I know, you’ve been hearing that Mobile SEO is very important and that most traffic is now coming from mobile devices.

 

The real thing here is that most professionals work from a desktop computer. So, the first contact with any issue, be it web development or SEO related, is on desktop, most of the times.

 

Often times I find myself fixing a quick issue on the desktop and completely forgetting to check how it looks on mobile devices.

 

 

And although I browse websites on mobile (as a user), when a client asks me something or signals an issue, I immediately check it on my computer (the phone is busy at my ear anyway).

 

In SEO, you always have to keep in mind that Google uses mobile first indexing.

 

If you’re mostly working from a desktop computer, like me, remember to always right-click in Chrome and hit inspect.

 

You can select multiple device types to stop any issues.

 

But sometimes, phones act differently than the desktop Chrome browser does (even when set on mobile view), so it’s always best to check on a physical phone itself.

 

And don’t forget to check on both Android and iOS.

 

Test if links work, test if scrolling works, test the entire checkout process, test, test, test.

 

Ask your friends to test, ask your mom to test ask your cat to test. If the cat can use it, you’re good to go.

 

 

In addition to that, consider that CSS hidden content also follows the mobile-first mentality.

 

Feel comfortable to combine desktop columns into sliders, or compress long paragraphs of text into dropdowns.

 

For example, on an eCommerce website, you might have a small description before your products, on the category page.

 

If on mobile devices the text pushes the products too far down, the users won’t be able to quickly see them when they load the page.

 

You can shorten the mobile description by using a ‘read more’ link which triggers a dropdown with the rest of the content.

 

8. You don’t analyze and you underestimate your competition

 

“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.” – Sun Tzu

 

Deep, isn’t it?

 

Google Analytics and Search Console are very good friends, but they only show you data for your own website.

 

Sometimes, it’s not enough to only do research about yourself. You have to analyze your competition! Not doing this, might end up in saying that SEO does not work for your website. 

 

That’s why having an SEO Tools Set like CognitiveSEO is a good idea. You can analyze and monitor your competitors to see how they perform and find gaps.

 

So, if you want to improve your SEO campaigns, make sure you always perform an SEO Competitor Analysis.

 

9. You’ve skipped keyword research

 

New clients often come to me because they are not satisfied with the results they got from their previous SEO partners.

 

Many times, after a quick analysis, I can spot that the title tags and meta descriptions have not been optimized at all!

 

That lets me know that keyword research hasn’t been performed.

 

I’ve seen many ‘SEO pack’ offers around, which are mostly PBNs or different link building tactics. 5 links per month…  10 links per month… and so on.

 

It baffles me and I don’t agree with it, but I guess it’s about money…

 

They’re easy to sell and can often offer quick results. But those results might only last a very short time and I can bet on who the contract you’ve signed covers (spoiler alert, it’s not you).

 

However, while those links might be helpful in certain situations, they probably won’t get you anywhere without the right keyword in the right places.

 

Make sure you do your keyword research!

 

10. You’re not prioritizing the right things

 

It might not be that you’re doing SEO wrong. It might just be that you’re doing the wrong type of SEO or at the wrong time.

 

Why put so much effort into getting that 100% PageSpeed score if your loading times are already between 1-3 seconds?

 

Why write more blog content when you haven’t finished optimizing your category pages?

 

• If you have a small website and no SEO has been performed, start with keyword research and title tags optimization.
• If you have a website with a lot of images, start by compressing your images.
• If you have a huge website with a lot of filters, make sure you prioritize crawlability and indexability by optimizing your faceted navigation.

 

Sometimes, it might be design (if your website is too outdated for your audience). Other times, it might be UX.

 

It’s different from website to website.

 

That’s why an SEO audit is crucial for your website’s success, especially if your website is huge.

 

But not just any SEO audit will do. You need an SEO Audit that actually looks in-depth at all your issues and then prioritizes them properly.

 

11. You’re ignoring structure, click depth & internal linking

 

A website’s structure defines how easily users and search engines will navigate and understand your content.

 

Make sure you structure your website accordingly.

 

You should always keep important pages maximum 3 clicks away from your homepage.

 

If you’re using pagination, make sure all your pages are linked to from the first archive/category page.

 

Moreover, if you’re not doubling down already on internal links, you should.

 

Use your blog to always link to important pages, such as product category pages, using relevant and keyword rich anchor texts.

 

There’s no penalty for using too many internal links. Well… just don’t make everything an internal link and you’ll be fine.

 

12. You’re ignoring backlinks

 

I’ve been fortunate enough to be able to help most of my clients rank high with very few links if any links at all.

 

But once in a while, there are projects that even the best SEOs can’t handle without actively pursuing backlinks.

 

I like to think of myself as being able to do everything without links, but I also what to be as efficient as possible.

 

Getting backlinks is not bad. They’re just used improperly.

 

In some cases, your website simply needs more authority. And the fastest way to build it is by having quality backlinks.

 

If the number of links your competitors have far outweighs yours, you’ll have a hard time outranking them.

 

 

Sometimes, it might just mean it takes longer to see results, considering you’re doing everything else right.

 

Other times, it’s just plain impossible.

 

Links can help you kickstart that initial progress to help you gain your client’s trust and secure a long-term deal.

 

The best thing you can do is to build relationships, through content marketing and shareable content, such as case studies or interviews with industry-leading experts.

 

Don’t just stop at link building. Try to be involved and build a small community. That’s what Google likes.

 

Sometimes, however… you can just buy the links.

 

Of course, you don’t want to buy and spammy links that might get your website penalized.

 

But it’s wise to understand that links are ads and ads are paid for. The internet works based on ads, so own it.

 

You can always nofollow your paid links (just like Google tells you to do).

 

Nofollow links can also improve rankings and I’ve seen this with my own eyes on my own clients.

 

13. You don’t understand your audience

 

The audience is much more important for SEO than you think. It can make or break your SEO strategies. You might be saying: neh, SEO is not working for me when the actual problem is the way you tackle your audience. 

 

You might have the best interest and the greatest information in your content marketing strategy. But if you don’t deliver it in the right format or tone of voice, you won’t be getting the best results.

 

Maybe your audience prefers video content. Then stop spending so much time writing articles. Just use your video scripts as repurposed content on your blog instead.

 

 

Make sure you understand your audience well and make decisions based on that.

 

14. You’ve externalized to the wrong SEO agency

 

I hate talking about this, but finding a good SEO company or digital marketing agency isn’t an easy task.

 

Even more… in the pandemic era of 2020-2021, people have rebranded as experts in digital marketing fields. Much to say… they’re not really experts.

 

So, be very picky when choosing who you work with. Here are some more things to look after when hiring an SEO company.

 

On the other hand, if you are an SEO company, here’s how to convince your clients to buy your SEO services.

 

15. You’re not monitoring your results

 

Correctly monitoring results is a very difficult task. Sometimes, is not that SEO does not work but monitoring results properly does not work. 

 

That’s because monitoring isn’t just about traffic and conversion rate optimization.

 

It’s about discovering new opportunities to do things better.

 

But even so, whether it’s a drop in traffic or a drop in conversions, the sooner you see it, the sooner you’ll be able to fix it.

 

 

There are many tricks, such as using Google Search Console to identify secondary keywords for articles that are already ranking pretty well.

 

Go to the Performance Section, select a page that’s already ranking well and then go back to the Queries section. Activate Positions and CTR and look for those phrases that have a good click through rate. 

 

 

You can then start adding that keyword to your content to rank better for it in the search engines. If you want even better results, try out the CognitiveSEO Content Optimization Tool.

 

Or, you can use a Secondary Dimension (Behaviour > Landing Page) on the Organic Traffic Channel in Google Analytics to figure out which pages converted the best. Then you can mix those with the Google Search Console query data to know (with approximation) which set of keywords bring the most conversions.

 

 

Tools such as Google Analytics have a lot of filters that can help you figure out what exactly happened on your website so make sure you use them for better SEO results.

 

I hope this list of 15 reasons why your SEO doesn’t work helps you figure out what you’ve been doing wrong or at least gives you a new perspective on your SEO campaigns.

 

Complex SEO strategies and tactics are awesome, but you always have to make sure you stick to the basics first.

 

Do you think there are other reasons why someone’s SEO strategy might not work? Share them with us in the comments section below.

 

Businesses exist because of customers. 

Regardless of what industry you are in or what products or services you sell, your customers are the most important part of your business. Because without customers, there is simply no business for your company to exist. 

As a result, your marketing must factor in what influences consumer behavior. 

Marketing is so much more than creating a catchy phrase or jingle. You need to figure out how to meet your customers’ needs, what their values are, and speak to them in ways that they would want to engage to build a successful marketing campaign.

But what exactly is consumer behavior and why is it important to marketers? 

What is Consumer Behavior?

Consumer behavior definition in marketing is the study of how people make purchasing decisions and understanding the reasons that affect their purchase, such as social or psychological factors. 

It is a study that uses data insights from surveys and reports to find the “why” behind each buying decision. Often, this means looking into different facets of consumer behavior and answering questions like: 

• What are the consumer perceptions about a certain brand, product, or service?
• What motivates a consumer to select one product over another and why? 
• What factors in a consumer’s everyday environment affect buying decisions and why?

Of course, there are many more. But using the answers to these questions can help businesses make better decisions and effective marketing strategies by aligning their techniques with their desired target audiences. 

As we have seen time and time again, successful brands and companies align their marketing strategies to factors affecting consumer behavior as to the foundation.

They’re not generating products and marketing plans based on their ideas alone, but instead, look into how consumers behave and take that information to match up their product design and marketing strategy to what consumers want and need. 

Every consumer has a different thought process and motivation for buying a product. Despite being customers of the same product, their difference in lifestyle or income can have influences on behavior and their approach to purchasing. 

As marketers understand the varying factors, they can adopt customer differentiation to tailor their strategies according to different consumer groups. With this, businesses can expand the width of their services to be able to effectively serve a wider group of consumers. 

Besides, customers have come to expect personalization from companies. According to a report by Instapage, 74% of customers feel frustrated when website content is not personalized or catered to them.

This makes learning consumer behavior more necessary than before, as companies need to understand how to appeal to these consumers.

An extra point is, studying consumer behavior can also be helpful to quickly identify consumer opportunities. By studying what customers are looking for or emerging trends, your company can be the first to identify gaps that are not met. 

For example, a recent change in consumer behavior is driven by COVID-19 that warrants the increasing need for health supplements that boost immunity.

Nutritional companies that monitored the change in eating patterns of consumers would be able to quickly react to this trend and produce immunity and respiratory health-boosting supplements to fill in the void in the marketplace. 

Now that you understand the importance of your consumer behavior in marketing, this next section will show you how to put it to use in a 4-step process. 

How to Integrate Consumer Behavior with Marketing?

1. Understand Your Consumers

First and foremost, it’s critical to understand your consumers. And where better to understand the factors that influence buying behavior of your target audiences than directly from your customers themselves. 

Encourage your customers to drop a review or sign up with review platforms like G2 or Trustpilot to help solicit feedback. 

Then, take the time to read your reviews, get feedback from customer support and search up your own products or website online to see what people are saying about your brand. 

You can even do a quick Google search to see what people are saying about you. Just simply search your ”brand name + reviews”. 

When going through your reviews, make sure you read them neutrally and try understanding where your consumers are coming from. 

Here, you should be able to identify important insights like what is your customer’s favorite feature, why do customers prefer you from other brands, and more. 

Most importantly, take the opportunity to create a buyer persona. This should help you have a better idea of who you are speaking to when creating your marketing campaigns. 

For example, BiQ’s buyer persona may be male, small business entrepreneurs in their 30s who are operating a digital marketing business. 

Take a look at how Keyword Gap Analysis drives success in Digital Marketing.

2. Know your Competitors

As good as you are with your customers, you must know your competitors even better. And in digital marketing, you can have direct and indirect competitors. 

To quickly explain, direct competitors are businesses that compete with you directly by selling similar products or services. Meanwhile, indirect competitors are businesses that might be selling a different product or service but are potential substitute options. For example, think McDonald’s and Subway. 

No matter the competitor, you are competing for the same resources — target audience.

By learning about who your competitors are and what they are offering can help you to make your products, services, and marketing stand out. It will also let you communicate with your target audience and set your prices competitively to navigate challenges in your market. 

So how do you do this? It’s easy. Simply paste your domain URL in competitive analysis sites like Alexa or SEMrush to identify similar competition.

Next, dig up information on your competitors. Find out who they are and similarly, go through their reviews, customer feedback on them, and look for gaps you can take advantage of. 

Look at this review for example, while many praise SEMrush SEO features and solutions, it can still be hard to navigate and overwhelming for beginners.  

Understanding this gap, we have created BiQ SEO Suite which places emphasis on ease of use and friendly interface that has brought us our customers today!

3. Use Keyword Gap Analysis to Minimize the Gap Between Yourself and Your Competitors

At last, you can’t talk about digital marketing without keywords. 

Now that you have your customers and competitors down, it’s time to do a complete keyword analysis for your domain and your competitors.

This is known as keyword gap analysis and it offers a side-by-side comparison between your keyword profile and your competitors’. 

You can use tools like BiQ Rank Intelligence and simply enter the domains to start your keyword audit and discovery. The report will show you all the ranking keywords for each site and you can analyze them according to their rankings and traffic to compare them. 

When going through the list, you want to look for overlapping and common keywords missing from your site. To make this easy, group your keywords into two categories:

a. Keywords you rank for, but they don’t

This category consists of your keyword strengths and represents search terms that you might be ranking higher over your competitors. 

Make sure you track these keywords using BiQ’s Rank Tracking to keep track of your site traffic. Your ranking should correspond to your site traffic and will be a good indicator of the increase or drop based on your ranking. 

This will let you keep an eye on the competitors who are trying to steal your keywords while tracking algorithm changes and other anomalies. 

More importantly, these keywords should also inform you which are the relevant keywords you should be targeting. As you are already ranking high for these keywords, Google sees you as the authority for the topic and you might want to get an extra boost when you optimize or create content for related keyword groups. 

b. Keywords your competitors are ranking for, but you don’t

This list consists of your keyword opportunities. Your competitors most likely have done the SEO and identify the valuable keywords that your audiences are searching for. 

So make sure to identify decent volume, valuable keywords missing from your list and add them to your keyword strategy. You can target them by analyzing Google’s search results and finding gaps that will allow you to create better content. 

On the other hand, if there are keywords you have already created content for but have still yet to rank high, analyze your ranking competitors’ keywords and identify if there are any missing keywords you should be optimizing into your existing content to make it more relevant. 

For both scenarios, we recommend using BiQ’s Content Intelligence that will make the writing and optimizing process much easier. It offers WordGraph analysis which will automatically compare your content to the Top 10 rankings and provide suggestions to improve.  

At the same time, take the chance to understand the keyword strategy your competitors have and decipher their tactics to get high traffic. 

Overall, you should get insights and identify the differences between each domain’s ranking keywords. Look into your data and see what kind of keywords are each domain ranking for? 

For example, is your domain ranking better for long-tail or short-tail keywords? What about your competitors’? How many keywords does your competitor include in their content? and more.

The key is to identify patterns and find search terms that you may have missed. 

Often, many marketers target high volume keywords but you also want to pay attention to low search, high intent keywords as well. 

Just imagine if you are an ecommerce store selling trainers, there are obvious phrases like brands and models of shoes that all your competitors will be targeting, but what about the specific long-tail keywords?

For example, extra-small shoe sizes, specific styles of shoes like cricket cleats. These phrases may not have a high volume of traffic, but by nature, they have high intent and are more likely to convert compared to keywords like Nike shoes. 

You want to make sure you discover these hidden keywords during your gap analysis. 

4. Understand The Types of Consumer Behavior In Your Industry

Now before you begin creating content for these keywords, there are 4 types of consumer behaviors you should know to better build your marketing funnel:

• Routine Shopping – Regular purchases done by consumers, this behavior is associated with low product pricing and shows low involvement without the need for much research. An example would be grocery shopping at the supermarket or buying snacks.
• Limited Decision Making – Buying products occasionally. Consumers in this category are purchasing something that costs more but is not expensive and will require a moderate amount of time for research, often through recommendations as they make the purchase. For example, buying clothes or looking for a good Mexican food place. 
• Extensive Decision Making – Products in this category are usually unfamiliar to customers, expensive, and not frequently bought. This may take a longer time for research and consumers will be looking at multiple factors such as checking product ratings, asking friends and professionals for more information, comparing options before making the final decision. 
• Impulse Buying – Impulse buyers often show the tendency of a customer making purchasing decisions at the spur of the moment, without planning in advance. These purchase decisions are often triggered by emotions or feelings. 

Knowing this, your digital marketing interactions should be founded based on these 4 types of buying behavior. 

Let’s say you are targeting impulse buyers, your sales page copywriting then should focus on triggering your customer’s emotions and place emphasis on limited-time offers.

5. Use the Discovered Hidden Keywords

Finally, one last important lesson is that even if you have your keywords, you need to learn how to use your keywords with the right type of content to convert your audience into qualified leads.

While most SEOs often resort to written content, you should also use different content types like infographics, videos, and other forms of content that match the user’s search intent. 

According to a report by Wyzowl, 96% of people prefer watching an explainer video to learn more about a product or service and 84% of people say they made the decision to purchase a product or service after watching a brand’s video. 

Despite this, in 2021, we still only see 14% of businesses using videos in their marketing mix.

What’s most important here is to always meet the search intent of the target keyword and align it with what your consumers are looking for. And most importantly, use these hidden keywords in your marketing to invoke a specific consumer behavior you want to target. 

Read how to drive more organic traffic to your site on our recent blog.

Key Takeaway: Use Keyword Gap Analysis to Target Buyer Keywords and Shape Consumer Behavior

As the business world evolves, so do consumer habits and tastes. What stays the same is that consumer behavior is still the most vital component to crafting a great marketing campaign.

Digital marketing is about basing decisions on actual data. Understanding your consumer behaviors can deliver insights that will help you make better digital marketing decisions that drive action. 

By integrating competitive keyword analysis and consumer behavior, your business can get an unprecedented advantage over your competitors in terms of product visibility and conversion. 

So what are you waiting for? Start implementing keyword gap analysis into your marketing strategy today with RankingGap!

You can learn more about our keyword gap analysis strategies in our main blog here.

Updated: 31 July 2021

Want to increase your sales and rankings at the same time? If so, you should consider giving the sales pages of your website a tune-up.

Maybe you don’t have a sales page on your website. Or maybe your sales page needs some work. An incomplete or non-existent sales page is going to hurt your sales. Period.

Websites that neglect to write strong sales pages for their products or services leave customers confused, wanting more, or unsure of what to do next.

I’m going to give you the full breakdown of how to create a killer sales page that’s designed to convert customers, drive sales, and improve the user-experience of your website. It’s a win-win-WIN.

Let’s get to it!

What Is a Sales Page (And Why Should You Have One)?

A sales page is an individual page on your website for each product or service your business offers.

The point of this page is to connect with a potential customer, address everything they would want to know about the product or service you offer, remove any doubts they may have, and guide them to a sale.

A sales page has the potential to dramatically increase your conversions and rankings, but if it’s not done effectively it could hurt your business. Here are the most common mistakes I see with sales pages:

1. There is no designated page on the website that discusses the service or product
2. All of the services or products have been lumped together onto one page
3. They’ve tried to optimize the sales page for all of the keywords related to the products/services which causes the page to cannibalize itself

If done right, here’s how a killer sales page will help you.

Improved SEO

If you create an individual sales page for each product or service you offer, it will increase your ranking ability.

When you have an individual page for each service, Google will be able to index and rank each page when a customer searches for that service.

Google rankings have a direct impact on your page visits. So the higher you rank, the more visitors you’ll get to your website.

Customer Satisfaction

An individual page for your service or product will also improve the user’s experience on your website.

A page for each service makes it easier to navigate your website. Users like information right at their fingertips, so if anything is difficult to find or confusing to operate they’ll jump right off the page.

If you make it simple and easy, they’ll stay on the page longer–giving you a better chance of achieving a sale.

Now that you know why it’s useful, let’s get into how to create one.

Sales Page Template

A killer sales page highlights the following sections:

1. A Headline
2. An Overview
3. Benefits/Features
4. How it Works
5. Testimonials
6. Pricing
7. A Guarantee
8. CTA (Call to Action)

That said, each product or service can vary significantly, so some sections may not be applicable to you. It is up to you to determine which of these sections you’ll need for your sales page.

Let’s break these sections down step-by-step.

1. Grab Attention & Make An Impression With A Bold Headline

It’s not enough to get a customer to land on your website. The biggest challenge you’ll face is getting them to stay there (and better yet, buy your product or service).

The problem is that the average person spends around 10 seconds on a web page. Those first 10 seconds are meant to assess the page’s validity and usefulness to them. Users are hardwired to bounce from web page to web page because they know most web pages are useless.

If you don’t grab the attention of your customer within the first 10 seconds, they will be long gone before you can say the words “20% OFF!”

That’s where a powerful headline comes in.

Hook Them in With a Catchy Headline

Your headline should be a brief statement of the service or product you offer, and should be catchy enough to grab the interest of the customer.

If a website says “Dog Boarding in St. Pete, FL” and another says “The Most Trusted Dog Boarding Facility in St. Pete FL” which one is the customer more likely to click on? Probably the second one.

If you are creating a local service page, be sure to include the city or region in your headline as well.

Finally, make sure your headline contains your targeted keyword and is formatted with the <h1> tag.

Include a Subhead

Now you’ll need to expand on your headline and answer the question “What benefit will my customer receive?”

Customers are looking for solutions to their problems. If your customer doesn’t know how you’re going to help them right from the beginning, you’ll lose their business.

Keep your subhead short, sweet, and to the point. No more than two sentences. And then format it with the <p> tag.

2. Provide Them With a Quick Overview

When people land on a web page, they are looking to access information quickly and easily. Make sure your page is set up to help someone skim for information.

Your page will need an overview after the headline. This gives the customer a general idea of what they can expect from the page and whether or not it will be useful to them.

Create a Section Headline for the Overview

This should be a compelling headline that encompasses the main problem or solution.

If my page headline is “The Most Trusted Dog Boarding Facility in St. Pete FL” then my Overview Headline might be “Leave Your Dog With People You Can Trust”.

What’s my problem? I don’t want to leave my dog with some sketchy stranger (a valid concern).

What’s the solution? I need to choose a dog-boarding facility with trusted professionals.

Your section headline should use an <h2> tag.

Briefly Describe the Problem and the Solution

Now you need to identify the problem and offer a solution to introduce your product or service.

If my headline is “Leave Your Dog With People You Can Trust” my description might sound something like this:

Address the problem. Acknowledge the solution. Offer the service to help.

Finish Strong With a CTA

Don’t know what a CTA is? Pay attention, because you’re going to need this.

A CTA is a Call to Action. It gets the customer to do something. Do you want your customer to call you? To fill out an online form? To book an appointment?

Give them the tool to do it!

If a customer has to spend more than a couple of seconds combing through your website to find the right link, you’ll risk losing them to a competitor.

People want quick access to what they need. So make their life as easy as possible to keep them on the page.

End your Overview with a CTA like this:

[Call Us Today: 888-988-8909]

-or-

[Schedule a Free Consultation Now]

And then link your CTA accordingly.

3. Let Them Know Why Your Product or Service Is The Best

Odds are you’ve got a lot of competitors out there, and your customer will undoubtedly be weighing their options.

Why should they choose your service/product over the X amount of options out there?

You need to highlight the reasons your service is THE BEST hands down. How do you do that? By spotlighting the benefits or features of your service.

Add a Compelling Benefit or Feature Headline

Don’t get lazy here. This is your selling point. If the customer sees a section that just says “Benefits” they’ll likely keep scrolling.

Be specific and make it POP!

Try something like:

• “Fast and Reliable Service”
• “Data-Driven Strategy”

The customer should read the headline and instantly want to know more.

Don’t forget to format your headline with an <h2> tag.

Highlight the Feature or Benefit With a Quick Description

One of the biggest mistakes you can make here is drone on and on and on about why your product or service is soooo great.

Nobody is going to read a huge wall of text. It’s an eye-sore. And as previously mentioned, no one wants their time wasted.

Your description should get straight to the point about why you’re their best option.

Keep your sentences short and straightforward and add bullet points when you can. This should be as easy to read as possible.

Here’s an example:

See what I mean? Quick. Easy to read. Attention to the highlights. Done.

4. Walk Them Through Your Process

Now that the customer knows what they’re buying, you’ll want to show them the process.

If they don’t know where to start or what to expect, they might jump to a different site. So break down the process and make it fool-proof.

Create a Headline for Your Process

This Headline doesn’t need to be complicated. You can use “Our Process” or “How it Works” to start it off.

You want the customer to know exactly what this section is about.

This will use the <h2> tag.

Breakdown Your Process Steps

The worst thing you can do here is confuse or overwhelm your customer. You want them to feel like this process is going to be a walk in the park!

If your process shows a ton of complicated steps, they’re going to run in the other direction to find someone who makes it easy.

Use the <h3> tag to format your process steps, and then break down the step in a sentence or two.

It’s easier than it seems. Here’s a visual:

Sounds easy, right? Now the customer feels good getting started.

5. Give The Buyer Confidence With Social Proof

The customer will be looking for proof that they can trust YOU, so now’s your chance to convince them with some testimonials.

If you have any positive feedback from previous customers, show it off. If you don’t, you can include a snippet about your business that will help establish trust.

You want them to think, “If other people like it, I probably will too!”

Start With a Trust-Building Headline

Yeah, you could say “Customer Testimonials” but where’s the fun in that? Your headline has just as much potential to build trust as the actual proof does.

Kick it up a notch with “We Are Your Best Choice for Your Pet.”

And then add that <h2> tag.

Show off a Little

Now you can share your testimonials. If you have a lot–kudos to you–try to narrow it down to your top two or three.

A good rule of thumb is to choose testimonials that highlight the benefits or features you talked about earlier on in the page.

Remember to get the point across quickly and efficiently. Too much text and the customer will stop reading.

6. Clearly Address Pricing

If the customer has made it this far into your sales page, they’re going to be wondering about the cost.

If you don’t address the pricing upfront, or if you tiptoe around it because you’re worried about spooking the customer, you might lose the customer.

Instead, build trust with them by staying honest and direct with the pricing section.

Add a Pricing Headline

Now is not the time to get fancy. Call the pricing section what it is. “Pricing” “Packages and Pricing” or another headline that clearly introduces the pricing.

You can even pose the exact question the customer will ask, like “How Much Does It Cost To XYZ?”

Format it with the <h2> tag and you’re set.

Give a Price Breakdown

Clearly show the pricing for the service or product, or address how the pricing is calculated and where to find it.

If the pricing requires a quote or contact to the business–explain it while being as straightforward as possible.

Here’s an example:

Simple, yet informative.

7. Risk-Reversal With A Guarantee

If your company has a Guarantee, this is a great way to start wrapping up your page.

If the customer has doubts, a guarantee will help put their mind at ease. The fewer the doubts the customer has, the easier it will be to secure their business.

A Guarantee should look like this:

If you do not have a guarantee, go ahead and skip this part (or consider creating one!).

8. Finish Off Strong With A Final CTA

Wrap your page up with a killer CTA. This is the final move to lock in your customer.

Create Your Final Headline

This is the last thing the customer sees. Finish it off with a powerful headline that compels the customer to do something.

Be sure to format it with the <h2> tag.

Sum It Up

In one to two sentences, sum up your page and give them the next step to take action.

Your final CTA can look like this:

And you’re done!

Conclusion

Our sales page guide is one of many you’ll find online–but we can assure you that this template will boost sales and convince customers to buy your service or product.

If you want help creating a killer sales page for your website, you’re going to love our HOTH Web Copy product.

Let us know your thoughts in the comments below. We love hearing from you!

Are you making the most out of the data you can get about your website from Google Analytics (GA)?

The free tool gives you valuable insights into metrics like conversion rates, traffic sources, engagement, audience demographics, and more.

Let’s learn what GA is and how to use it to improve your website’s metrics.

What Is Google Analytics?

Google Analytics is a free tool to track user behavior on your website. With a range of metrics to explore, you can start to get a picture of how people use your website and how you can make changes to increase sales.

On a basic level, you can track how many visitors you have, how they found you, the number of views a page receives, and more.

In many ways, Google Analytics is the portal giving you insider, back end, and real-time access to what your users want.

Why Should You Use Google Analytics?

Google Analytics is the most powerful tool to track website metrics, and it comes from the king of search engines. On top of that, it’s free.

Although it takes some work to get set up, there are plenty of online tutorials and resources to walk you through the process. Once you get Google Analytics connected to your site, you can head to the Google Analytics dashboard and start checking things out. It can’t go back in time, though, so you will have to wait for data to gather.

Google Analytics can free you from relying on gut checks and intuition and instead tell you what pages and which content hit the mark or fall short. In this way, you can make informed choices.

The Basic Google Analytics Interface

Once you set up your Google Analytics account, you can connect different URLs and choose which one to explore from the drop-down.

The first thing Analytics shows is basic traffic data, including dates. You can alter the dates based on your needs.

On the left side of the screen, Google Analytics provides a list of report options. This is where you can start to get into the details.

On the far right, there’s a blue box with real-time metrics showing how many people are on the site, how many pages are viewed per minute, and the most popular pages to view. You can then click on the blue box to learn more about the data.

If you’re looking for something specific, just type it into the handy search bar.

As you scroll down, you can check out different analytics, including where your users come from and what devices they use.

Common Metrics Tracked With Google Analytics

There are many metrics you can track using Google Analytics.

No matter which type you focus on, you need to choose a time frame for your data. This way, you can check a specific timespan against prior spans to see what’s changing and if what you’re doing is working.

As you analyze the data, try to remember what your marketing goals are. Otherwise, you may get overwhelmed by the whirlwind of numbers.

Let’s look at some of the most popular metrics just to get you started.

Tracking Visitors With Google Analytics

Tracking visitors shows who’s visiting, how many visitors you have, and what they’re doing on your website. This includes factors like bounce rates and session durations.

These metrics are anonymous and vague. You can’t gather personal details for specific visitors to your website.

To dig deeper, you can go to the “Audience” section of Google Analytics.

Tracking Traffic Sources With Google Analytics

Another powerful metric Google Analytics can provide is traffic sources. It answers the question, “how are people finding my website?” You can find this information under the “Acquisition” tab.

For instance, you can find out how much traffic comes from social media, Google Ads, and the Google Search Console. Knowing where your visitors are coming from and what they do once they get to your site can help you know where to focus your marketing efforts.

Tracking Content With Google Analytics

Google Analytics can help you understand how well different pieces of content perform by tracking user behavior. For example, are they visiting certain pages more often than others? Is on-page time higher on some types of content? This can help you determine what works and what doesn’t, which you can use to inform future content creation and marketing choices.

You can find this information under the “Behavior” section.

Tracking Conversions With Google Analytics

Let’s get down to brass tacks here. Are people buying (or doing whatever else you want them to do) once they land on your website? That’s what conversion metrics on Google Analytics can tell you.

These metrics are not automatically generated like the previous ones. Instead, conversion analytics requires you to set goals, typically using the pages visitors are directed to once they convert. Telling Google Analytics to follow users to these final pages can provide more specific information about how people are getting there, how many are converting, and more.

Track Mobile Performance

As mobile use becomes the norm, you may want to see how well your website performs on mobile devices.

These metrics can be found in the “Audience” section under “Mobile.” Here, you can see website metrics broken down by device categories. For example, if you find certain device users are spending less time or money on the site, look into how your site looks and behaves on that type of device.

Creating Custom Reports

As you get a handle on following your website’s metrics, you may find you need custom Google Analytics reports. Custom reports can help you check specific metrics more efficiently, using apples-to-apples comparisons between periods, campaigns, and more.

These custom reports may help when presenting information to your department, organization, leadership, or investors thanks to the hard numbers you can compare and the visual reports you can run. Of course, not everyone may fully understand what you do, but many are likely to understand the basics of what these numbers and graphs mean.

Other Common Google Analytics Functionality and Uses

Google Analytics is constantly rolling out new features that may help you meet your marketing goals. Let’s dive into a few.

Learn What People Are Searching for on Your Site

If you have a lot of content on your website, you may have a search function available to users. Knowing what people type into that search function can help you understand why visitors are on your site, allowing you to plan for and create more relevant content.

Under the “Behavior” area, click “Site Search” to view this information.

Identify Your Worst Performing Pages

Is there content on your website that’s just not performing? Then, you may benefit from optimizing those pages for SEO, deleting useless content, or creating entirely new work.

To learn which pages are not performing, go to “Behavior,” then “Site Content.” From there, click on the arrow to reorder the pages by popularity. This shows which pages get the fewest views. Do with that information what you will—though perhaps consider finding a cause before throwing the page into the abyss.

Find Where People Abandon Their Shopping Carts

People abandoning shopping carts while shopping is a typical e-commerce problem. If you can find where visitors are dropping off your website, you can make improvements to help convert them.

First, set up your goals using a sales funnel. Include each step of your check-out process, including cart, check-out, shipping, and confirmation, in the pages you plan to monitor. Then, click to “visualize your funnels” to see how people behave as they move through the funnel.

You may see a pattern regarding when people abandon carts begin to emerge and make updates accordingly.

See Your Most Important Analytics First

As we talked about above, Google Analytics places many of the most common analytics on the dashboard. However, you can set up a custom dashboard to see exactly what you need. Under the “Customization” tab, find the link for “Dashboards.” You can use a dashboard template or create your own.

How to Create Custom Reports in Google Analytics

Google Analytics Basics FAQs [wp editor: add schema]

What are some basic things you can do with Google Analytics?

Google Analytics can give you information about who visits your website, how many views your website receives, which content is the most popular, and more.

What is the best way to learn Google Analytics?

What is a Google Analytics tracking code?

Google Analytics uses a tracking ID, which you place in the code of your website or a plugin to allow Google to receive information about your website.

How much does it cost to use Google Analytics?

Most of the benefits of Google Analytics are free, though you can choose to purchase upgrades.

What is the benefit of using Google Analytics?

Google Analytics provides in-depth information on how well your website is performing.

Basics of Google Analytics Conclusion

Google Analytics provides nearly endless amounts of information about your website’s data. Once you set up Google Analytics on your website, you can access metrics covering nearly every part of your customers’ journeys.

You can create custom reports to analyze how well your strategies work. This may help you make informed changes to your website, which may, in turn, draw even more people to your brand and via your analytics-driven marketing strategy.

What’s your favorite Google Analytics feature?

As digital marketers, we have all been there — stuck on what to do next and trying to reinvent the wheel. We know what it is like to run out of ideas, to try every strategy, to test every new feature until we get to that point where we have done it all. And then what?

What if I tell you that in order to come out on top, you don’t need to reinvent things? What if you can try something new while barely changing the way you do things now? What I am talking about is keeping in place all the strategies you know work, along with all the content you know sells, and then simply translating them into the second-most spoken language in the United States.

Español.

Why should we focus on Spanish over all other languages?

This is a very fair question as there are hundreds of languages spoken in households all across the United States. Over 20% of Americans are bilingual and this segment of the population has more than doubled in the last 30 years. Additionally, the percentage of languages spoken at home is on the rise, from Spanish to Tagalog.

With so many language options to choose from, the reason I am focusing on Spanish is because, besides English, it is the most commonly-spoken language in the United States.

And since we are on the subject of bilingual speakers, I have a myth to bust. Most marketers believe that bilingual strategies will only be effective in major metropolitan areas. For this reason, it is not uncommon to see billboard and public transit ads in other languages posted in New York City or Los Angeles. However, these same billboard and public transit ads are not utilized outside major cities and, furthermore, are rarely used in digital marketing. But when you look at the map of the United States and evaluate the number who speak a foreign language at home, you can find pockets of speakers in every state. In fact, the state with the largest percentage increase of foreign language speakers at home was Nevada with a 1,088% increase since 1980. 

The Hispanic population is made up of 60.5 million people which comprises nearly 20% of the country’s population. The United States has more Spanish speakers than every country other than Mexico. Hispanics are the fastest growing segment of the U.S. population; for every two people added to the population, one is Hispanic.

Hispanics represent 20 different nationalities, but the U.S. population has a large percentage coming from Mexico, Cuba, and Puerto Rico.

The Hispanic consumer is very important to the U.S. economy because they control $1.5 trillion in buying power. This is up 212% from the last decade! Not only that, their consumption of products and services has increased by 42% in the same time period. Additionally, studies show that 66% of U.S. Hispanics pay attention to online ads and — more importantly — 93% take action after seeing the ads online, rendering them an incredible asset to the world of digital marketing. 

The real question we need to be asking ourselves is, if they represent such a significant portion of our online population, why is no one talking to them online? They represent a significant portion of the population, they have money, and they have a big desire to spend it. 

Why should digital marketers invest in Spanish?

 

Let’s dig into how to actually implement the strategy (that is not technically a strategy).

Setting up a campaign correctly

Like with any experiment, we need to follow the scientific method and separate our variables. These campaigns should be treated as a test and each language should be tested out separately. The test budget I recommend is 20-30% of what you would normally spend in a campaign. In terms of their setup, there are a few nuances we want to watch out for when considering bilingual campaigns. In the language setting, I like to add the language I am testing, as well as the main language of the country; in this case, English.

Another important thing to consider when setting up ad scheduling, is time zones. Google Ads and Bing Ads treat this feature very differently. In Google, we are looking at the time zone in which the account is created and, in Bing, the time zone of the end user. If you are testing bilingual and international campaigns, make sure you are not scheduling them during times your target audience is sleeping.

The rest is quite easy because you have already done the heavy lifting and testing. You will keep the structure the same and begin by simply selecting a few of your best-performing ad groups, or 30-50 of the top-performing keywords.

Translation

Translating ads is costly unless you can do it yourself. I know that not everyone has the knowledge or confidence to do it on their own, so I usually recommend a free tool like Google Translate. Even as a native speaker, I use this tool to double check my own work.

Free tools like Google Translate do a great job, but can be very time-consuming if a large amount of keywords or ad copy translation is needed. One of my favorite hacks in Google Sheets is using the Google Translate function. GoogleTranslate allows you to, in seconds, translate everything efficiently.

I always suggest having a native Spanish speaker double check your work if possible because, like all languages, the meaning and words can vary greatly, depending where you are from. 

I attended the Women in Search and Digital Marketing Speak My Language Conference and learned that the word we use in the United States for pants is not the same everywhere else. If you were to use that same word in the United Kingdom, you would instead be referring to underpants.If you are a clothing retailer in the United Kingdom, this is vital information. You could be bidding on a word with incorrect intent, missing out on all the good clicks by not using the proper term — trousers. That is just one example of the importance of using the correct verbiage in a multilingual country. Within the Spanish language, 20 countries are represented, and so a term as simple as bus may be completely different elsewhere, depending on your country of origin.

Even if you do not have a Spanish coworker or friend to assist you, there are some noteworthy places to ask for help. Twitter and Reddit have large communities with people from all over the world to help translate or double check your work.

Important Ad Copy Considerations

Crafting the correct ad copy is important when reaching any audience, but crafting the perfect message in a language that may not be your own is a Herculean task. Thankfully, the Spanish speakers in the United States are an easy audience to work with. Though they are used to consuming their online media in English, the majority are at home speaking purely Spanish, or at least bilingually, with low expectations in regards to the quality of the online content. Fifty-two percent are using English browser settings, not as a preference, but because they have no other choice. 

When viewing ads, 88% of Hispanics will pay attention regardless of language when it includes an aspect of their culture. Obviously, the best practice here is to translate your ads 100%, but I also believe it is ok to translate 50% or even to not translate at all. The goal we are trying to achieve here is to show searchers quality information the first time they try looking for it. In the SERP, it is ok to have an English ad pointing to a Spanish keyword, because you will most likely be one of the few trying to fight for that space and make it to the top. It is better to have a well-written English ad than a Spanish ad with mistakes.

Mobile 

Hispanics spend two more hours per week using their smartphones than all other demographics in the United States. Having a mobile plan is key to reach this audience. In fact, 68% of Hispanics who are searching on Google do it on a mobile device. Bidding higher on mobile, crafting mobile-specific ads, and creating Call-Only Campaigns could prove very successful as a bilingual mobile strategy.

YouTube

Advertising on YouTube is an essential part of reaching the Hispanic audience of the United States. Why? Because according to Neilsen, more Hispanics watch YouTube than any other cable network. When creating video content, we have good news — there is no need to translate these ads (which is a much more complex endeavor than text translation). Sixty percent of Hispanics watch content in English the majority of the time. Don’t forget to award yourself bonus points for including aspects of Hispanic culture to videos targeted to this audience!

What I find is interesting is how 75% of Hispanics use YouTube to learn about new products and to make informed purchasing decisions.

As you can see, Spanish PPC is a powerful way to connect with new users without having to break your formula or the bank. It also has another huge benefit — it opens the door to making searching online accessible for all. By simply translating or including elements of a different culture into keywords and ads, we are extending an open invitation for people to feel comfortable and catered to when searching online.

So, you’re wondering why SEO does not work for you and your website, right?

Haven’t you heard?! SEO is dead!

Dead from all the bad jokes about it.

Of course, SEO isn’t actually dead, but there are a few reasons why SEO might not be working for you and your site.

 

We’ve gathered 14 top of mind reasons why your SEO might not be working for your website.

Let’s go through them and see if something rings a bell.

 

1. You don’t stick to the basics
2. You don’t really understand what SEO is
3. SEO just doesn’t fit your business/idea
4. Your expectations are too high
5. You’re not patient enough
6. Your budget is too small
7. You’re not focusing on mobile
8. You don’t analyze and you underestimate your competition
9. You’ve skipped keyword research
10. You’re not prioritizing the right things
11. You’re ignoring structure, click depth & internal linking
12. You’re ignoring backlinks
13. You don’t understand your audience
14. You’ve externalized to the wrong SEO agency
15. You’re not monitoring your results

 

 

1. You don’t stick to the basics

 

When people say SEO has some relation with magic, what they actually mean is that it’s very complex.

 

It would take several very long articles for me to fully explain how it works. 

Yes, it implies user experience, link profile, content strategy, referral traffic or marketing campaigns. And all these SEO efforts might seem very complex.

 

However, SEO is more simple that you might think, in some ways.

 

In a nutshell, it’s the multitude of criteria which makes a website the best result for a particular keyword, in the sense that it satisfies the user’s intent.

 

What you must understand is that Google isn’t trying to rank websites based on some checklist.

 

Sure, it follows a list of criteria, but it also looks at historical data in the SERP and since Rank  Brain has got involved, machine learning really made things a lot more complicated.

It’s hard for us humans to keep pace with how Google decides what actually makes a web page ‘the best one’. At this point… I’m not sure even the makers themselves have any idea how things work anymore.

 

So, instead focusing on the latest trends and techniques, try to focus more on the basics. Do them well and do them consistently.

 

Sure, SEO and digital marketing experts like Neil Patel and Brian Dean always try new techniques and tweaks, but one thing’s for sure: They haven’t stopped posting!

 

Being consistent is difficult, but it’s also the key to success!

 

2. You don’t really understand what SEO is

 

So, we know Google is trying to rank the best page.

 

But what does that actually mean?

 

Does it mean the page with the most targeted keywords? The page with the best links? The page with the best content?
Who wins the Google top organic results?

 

It’s the page that best satisfies the user’s intent. And in some cases, the website alone can’t do it!

 

Let’s say you want to rank high in the search engines for a very competitive eCommerce keyword. Well… if your offer isn’t good enough, you probably won’t.

 

If you want to rank for “shoes” but you only have 3 products in your store, you won’t be getting far.

 

If you want to rank for “cheap” but your prices aren’t cheap, again, you probably won’t have much success with it even if you optimize your website in this direction.

 

Moreover, many people don’t understand that high rankings within search results also reflect the quality of a business, at least to some extent.

 

For example, bad reviews on Google My Business can affect your local SEO rankings and your business listing and people don’t leave bad reviews because your SEO campaign sucks.

 

Sure, you can invest in search marketing and pump links into a website and get it to the top, but if the business itself doesn’t have the necessary infrastructure to properly satisfy clients (quality, shipping, support), the results won’t last for long!

 

I’ve seen sites pumping bad links and rushing to the top, only to fall ungracefully a short time after because they did not meet their user’s expectations.

 

3. SEO just doesn’t fit your business/idea

 

Another thing you should consider is that your business type should match SEO.

 

Usually, if you want to promote a short-term trending product, such as the fidget spinner, investing big and long term on SEO might not be the right choice!

 

 

Furthermore, if you need a quick turnover and you’re just getting started… SEO might not be the right channel for you, and you should look for PPC advertising or social media remarketing instead.

 

However, it’s not always a matter of SEO vs PPC. Usually, they go well together.

 

4. Your expectations are too high

 

The higher the expectations, the bigger the disappointment.

 

To be satisfied with your results, you’ll need to have realistic goals.

 

With SEO, you can’t really expect top rankings and huge websites traffic in a month or two, if your domain has just been registered.

 

You can’t expect to outrank the online presence of a strong competitor with thousands of links, with a tight budget and no scaling even if you apply some good SEO tactics.

 

In some cases, the entire competition might be way out of your league. That’s when you have to dig in deeper, to find those keyword opportunities that are easier to rank for.

 

You should still start with SEO as soon as possible, but start small. Look for keywords with lower competition and build your way up before saying that SEO does not work for you. 

 

5. You’re not patient enough

 

Sometimes you just need to be more patient.

 

Most SEOs will tell you upfront that it can take from 6 to 12 months to see the top positions.

 

 

Some will claim that they can get you to the #1 spot in the first month. It’s probably false and you should stay away from them.

 

You should always see progress in the first month.

 

If it’s a new website, that might be as little as the first pages getting indexed.

 

So, if you’re not yet in the position you’ve wished for but have increased in rankings compared to the previous month, just give it a little more time. You’re on the right path.

 

If you want to find out more about why it takes so long to rank in Google and other search engines and what you can do to speed things up, check out this article.

 

6. Your budget is too small

 

Actually… you CAN have high expectations. But for the right budget.

 

If your budget is too small, you might not be able to do everything you want and you might end up saying that SEO does not work for you. 

 

SEO includes things like: good server, fixing technical SEO issues, keyword research, content marketing, social media, investing in links and many others.

 

If you want to scale it up quickly and efficiently, the truth is that you will need a substantial investment.

 

 

Clients often ask me: “Why is it that SEO takes so long?”

 

Sure, part of the answer is: “Because Google.”

 

However, I’m always confident I can speed things up by scaling.

 

But why does scaling speed up the process, you may ask?

 

Well… it’s pretty straight forward:

 

• More content = more keywords covered faster
• More links = faster higher authority
• More monitoring = better / faster tweaking
• More programmers = faster site, more useful features, better UX, etc.

 

But all those above = more money.

 

Are you developing the content for 5 categories per month? Pump that to 10. Are you consolidating the site’s structure with 2 monthly blog posts? Up it to blog posts. Are you securing 1-2 links per month? Make that 5 and so on.

 

Many people get into SEO because they can use time instead of money to drive traffic to their websites and businesses.

 

However, time can’t scale things up. Only money can. If you want to rank faster, you’ll need to outsource some work.

 

7. You’re not focusing on Mobile

 

I know, I know, you’ve been hearing that Mobile SEO is very important and that most traffic is now coming from mobile devices.

 

The real thing here is that most professionals work from a desktop computer. So, the first contact with any issue, be it web development or SEO related, is on desktop, most of the times.

 

Often times I find myself fixing a quick issue on the desktop and completely forgetting to check how it looks on mobile devices.

 

 

And although I browse websites on mobile (as a user), when a client asks me something or signals an issue, I immediately check it on my computer (the phone is busy at my ear anyway).

 

In SEO, you always have to keep in mind that Google uses mobile first indexing.

 

If you’re mostly working from a desktop computer, like me, remember to always right-click in Chrome and hit inspect.

 

You can select multiple device types to stop any issues.

 

But sometimes, phones act differently than the desktop Chrome browser does (even when set on mobile view), so it’s always best to check on a physical phone itself.

 

And don’t forget to check on both Android and iOS.

 

Test if links work, test if scrolling works, test the entire checkout process, test, test, test.

 

Ask your friends to test, ask your mom to test ask your cat to test. If the cat can use it, you’re good to go.

 

 

In addition to that, consider that CSS hidden content also follows the mobile-first mentality.

 

Feel comfortable to combine desktop columns into sliders, or compress long paragraphs of text into dropdowns.

 

For example, on an eCommerce website, you might have a small description before your products, on the category page.

 

If on mobile devices the text pushes the products too far down, the users won’t be able to quickly see them when they load the page.

 

You can shorten the mobile description by using a ‘read more’ link which triggers a dropdown with the rest of the content.

 

8. You don’t analyze and you underestimate your competition

 

“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.” – Sun Tzu

 

Deep, isn’t it?

 

Google Analytics and Search Console are very good friends, but they only show you data for your own website.

 

Sometimes, it’s not enough to only do research about yourself. You have to analyze your competition! Not doing this, might end up in saying that SEO does not work for your website. 

 

That’s why having an SEO Tools Set like CognitiveSEO is a good idea. You can analyze and monitor your competitors to see how they perform and find gaps.

 

So, if you want to improve your SEO campaigns, make sure you always perform an SEO Competitor Analysis.

 

9. You’ve skipped keyword research

 

New clients often come to me because they are not satisfied with the results they got from their previous SEO partners.

 

Many times, after a quick analysis, I can spot that the title tags and meta descriptions have not been optimized at all!

 

That lets me know that keyword research hasn’t been performed.

 

I’ve seen many ‘SEO pack’ offers around, which are mostly PBNs or different link building tactics. 5 links per month…  10 links per month… and so on.

 

It baffles me and I don’t agree with it, but I guess it’s about money…

 

They’re easy to sell and can often offer quick results. But those results might only last a very short time and I can bet on who the contract you’ve signed covers (spoiler alert, it’s not you).

 

However, while those links might be helpful in certain situations, they probably won’t get you anywhere without the right keyword in the right places.

 

Make sure you do your keyword research!

 

10. You’re not prioritizing the right things

 

It might not be that you’re doing SEO wrong. It might just be that you’re doing the wrong type of SEO or at the wrong time.

 

Why put so much effort into getting that 100% PageSpeed score if your loading times are already between 1-3 seconds?

 

Why write more blog content when you haven’t finished optimizing your category pages?

 

• If you have a small website and no SEO has been performed, start with keyword research and title tags optimization.
• If you have a website with a lot of images, start by compressing your images.
• If you have a huge website with a lot of filters, make sure you prioritize crawlability and indexability by optimizing your faceted navigation.

 

Sometimes, it might be design (if your website is too outdated for your audience). Other times, it might be UX.

 

It’s different from website to website.

 

That’s why an SEO audit is crucial for your website’s success, especially if your website is huge.

 

But not just any SEO audit will do. You need an SEO Audit that actually looks in-depth at all your issues and then prioritizes them properly.

 

11. You’re ignoring structure, click depth & internal linking

 

A website’s structure defines how easily users and search engines will navigate and understand your content.

 

Make sure you structure your website accordingly.

 

You should always keep important pages maximum 3 clicks away from your homepage.

 

If you’re using pagination, make sure all your pages are linked to from the first archive/category page.

 

Moreover, if you’re not doubling down already on internal links, you should.

 

Use your blog to always link to important pages, such as product category pages, using relevant and keyword rich anchor texts.

 

There’s no penalty for using too many internal links. Well… just don’t make everything an internal link and you’ll be fine.

 

12. You’re ignoring backlinks

 

I’ve been fortunate enough to be able to help most of my clients rank high with very few links if any links at all.

 

But once in a while, there are projects that even the best SEOs can’t handle without actively pursuing backlinks.

 

I like to think of myself as being able to do everything without links, but I also what to be as efficient as possible.

 

Getting backlinks is not bad. They’re just used improperly.

 

In some cases, your website simply needs more authority. And the fastest way to build it is by having quality backlinks.

 

If the number of links your competitors have far outweighs yours, you’ll have a hard time outranking them.

 

 

Sometimes, it might just mean it takes longer to see results, considering you’re doing everything else right.

 

Other times, it’s just plain impossible.

 

Links can help you kickstart that initial progress to help you gain your client’s trust and secure a long-term deal.

 

The best thing you can do is to build relationships, through content marketing and shareable content, such as case studies or interviews with industry-leading experts.

 

Don’t just stop at link building. Try to be involved and build a small community. That’s what Google likes.

 

Sometimes, however… you can just buy the links.

 

Of course, you don’t want to buy and spammy links that might get your website penalized.

 

But it’s wise to understand that links are ads and ads are paid for. The internet works based on ads, so own it.

 

You can always nofollow your paid links (just like Google tells you to do).

 

Nofollow links can also improve rankings and I’ve seen this with my own eyes on my own clients.

 

13. You don’t understand your audience

 

The audience is much more important for SEO than you think. It can make or break your SEO strategies. You might be saying: neh, SEO is not working for me when the actual problem is the way you tackle your audience. 

 

You might have the best interest and the greatest information in your content marketing strategy. But if you don’t deliver it in the right format or tone of voice, you won’t be getting the best results.

 

Maybe your audience prefers video content. Then stop spending so much time writing articles. Just use your video scripts as repurposed content on your blog instead.

 

 

Make sure you understand your audience well and make decisions based on that.

 

14. You’ve externalized to the wrong SEO agency

 

I hate talking about this, but finding a good SEO company or digital marketing agency isn’t an easy task.

 

Even more… in the pandemic era of 2020-2021, people have rebranded as experts in digital marketing fields. Much to say… they’re not really experts.

 

So, be very picky when choosing who you work with. Here are some more things to look after when hiring an SEO company.

 

On the other hand, if you are an SEO company, here’s how to convince your clients to buy your SEO services.

 

15. You’re not monitoring your results

 

Correctly monitoring results is a very difficult task. Sometimes, is not that SEO does not work but monitoring results properly does not work. 

 

That’s because monitoring isn’t just about traffic and conversion rate optimization.

 

It’s about discovering new opportunities to do things better.

 

But even so, whether it’s a drop in traffic or a drop in conversions, the sooner you see it, the sooner you’ll be able to fix it.

 

 

There are many tricks, such as using Google Search Console to identify secondary keywords for articles that are already ranking pretty well.

 

Go to the Performance Section, select a page that’s already ranking well and then go back to the Queries section. Activate Positions and CTR and look for those phrases that have a good click through rate. 

 

 

You can then start adding that keyword to your content to rank better for it in the search engines. If you want even better results, try out the CognitiveSEO Content Optimization Tool.

 

Or, you can use a Secondary Dimension (Behaviour > Landing Page) on the Organic Traffic Channel in Google Analytics to figure out which pages converted the best. Then you can mix those with the Google Search Console query data to know (with approximation) which set of keywords bring the most conversions.

 

 

Tools such as Google Analytics have a lot of filters that can help you figure out what exactly happened on your website so make sure you use them for better SEO results.

 

I hope this list of 15 reasons why your SEO doesn’t work helps you figure out what you’ve been doing wrong or at least gives you a new perspective on your SEO campaigns.

 

Complex SEO strategies and tactics are awesome, but you always have to make sure you stick to the basics first.

 

Do you think there are other reasons why someone’s SEO strategy might not work? Share them with us in the comments section below.

 

Businesses exist because of customers. 

Regardless of what industry you are in or what products or services you sell, your customers are the most important part of your business. Because without customers, there is simply no business for your company to exist. 

As a result, your marketing must factor in what influences consumer behavior. 

Marketing is so much more than creating a catchy phrase or jingle. You need to figure out how to meet your customers’ needs, what their values are, and speak to them in ways that they would want to engage to build a successful marketing campaign.

But what exactly is consumer behavior and why is it important to marketers? 

What is Consumer Behavior?

Consumer behavior definition in marketing is the study of how people make purchasing decisions and understanding the reasons that affect their purchase, such as social or psychological factors. 

It is a study that uses data insights from surveys and reports to find the “why” behind each buying decision. Often, this means looking into different facets of consumer behavior and answering questions like: 

• What are the consumer perceptions about a certain brand, product, or service?
• What motivates a consumer to select one product over another and why? 
• What factors in a consumer’s everyday environment affect buying decisions and why?

Of course, there are many more. But using the answers to these questions can help businesses make better decisions and effective marketing strategies by aligning their techniques with their desired target audiences. 

As we have seen time and time again, successful brands and companies align their marketing strategies to factors affecting consumer behavior as to the foundation.

They’re not generating products and marketing plans based on their ideas alone, but instead, look into how consumers behave and take that information to match up their product design and marketing strategy to what consumers want and need. 

Every consumer has a different thought process and motivation for buying a product. Despite being customers of the same product, their difference in lifestyle or income can have influences on behavior and their approach to purchasing. 

As marketers understand the varying factors, they can adopt customer differentiation to tailor their strategies according to different consumer groups. With this, businesses can expand the width of their services to be able to effectively serve a wider group of consumers. 

Besides, customers have come to expect personalization from companies. According to a report by Instapage, 74% of customers feel frustrated when website content is not personalized or catered to them.

This makes learning consumer behavior more necessary than before, as companies need to understand how to appeal to these consumers.

An extra point is, studying consumer behavior can also be helpful to quickly identify consumer opportunities. By studying what customers are looking for or emerging trends, your company can be the first to identify gaps that are not met. 

For example, a recent change in consumer behavior is driven by COVID-19 that warrants the increasing need for health supplements that boost immunity.

Nutritional companies that monitored the change in eating patterns of consumers would be able to quickly react to this trend and produce immunity and respiratory health-boosting supplements to fill in the void in the marketplace. 

Now that you understand the importance of your consumer behavior in marketing, this next section will show you how to put it to use in a 4-step process. 

How to Integrate Consumer Behavior with Marketing?

1. Understand Your Consumers

First and foremost, it’s critical to understand your consumers. And where better to understand the factors that influence buying behavior of your target audiences than directly from your customers themselves. 

Encourage your customers to drop a review or sign up with review platforms like G2 or Trustpilot to help solicit feedback. 

Then, take the time to read your reviews, get feedback from customer support and search up your own products or website online to see what people are saying about your brand. 

You can even do a quick Google search to see what people are saying about you. Just simply search your ”brand name + reviews”. 

When going through your reviews, make sure you read them neutrally and try understanding where your consumers are coming from. 

Here, you should be able to identify important insights like what is your customer’s favorite feature, why do customers prefer you from other brands, and more. 

Most importantly, take the opportunity to create a buyer persona. This should help you have a better idea of who you are speaking to when creating your marketing campaigns. 

For example, BiQ’s buyer persona may be male, small business entrepreneurs in their 30s who are operating a digital marketing business. 

Take a look at how Keyword Gap Analysis drives success in Digital Marketing.

2. Know your Competitors

As good as you are with your customers, you must know your competitors even better. And in digital marketing, you can have direct and indirect competitors. 

To quickly explain, direct competitors are businesses that compete with you directly by selling similar products or services. Meanwhile, indirect competitors are businesses that might be selling a different product or service but are potential substitute options. For example, think McDonald’s and Subway. 

No matter the competitor, you are competing for the same resources — target audience.

By learning about who your competitors are and what they are offering can help you to make your products, services, and marketing stand out. It will also let you communicate with your target audience and set your prices competitively to navigate challenges in your market. 

So how do you do this? It’s easy. Simply paste your domain URL in competitive analysis sites like Alexa or SEMrush to identify similar competition.

Next, dig up information on your competitors. Find out who they are and similarly, go through their reviews, customer feedback on them, and look for gaps you can take advantage of. 

Look at this review for example, while many praise SEMrush SEO features and solutions, it can still be hard to navigate and overwhelming for beginners.  

Understanding this gap, we have created BiQ SEO Suite which places emphasis on ease of use and friendly interface that has brought us our customers today!

3. Use Keyword Gap Analysis to Minimize the Gap Between Yourself and Your Competitors

At last, you can’t talk about digital marketing without keywords. 

Now that you have your customers and competitors down, it’s time to do a complete keyword analysis for your domain and your competitors.

This is known as keyword gap analysis and it offers a side-by-side comparison between your keyword profile and your competitors’. 

You can use tools like BiQ Rank Intelligence and simply enter the domains to start your keyword audit and discovery. The report will show you all the ranking keywords for each site and you can analyze them according to their rankings and traffic to compare them. 

When going through the list, you want to look for overlapping and common keywords missing from your site. To make this easy, group your keywords into two categories:

a. Keywords you rank for, but they don’t

This category consists of your keyword strengths and represents search terms that you might be ranking higher over your competitors. 

Make sure you track these keywords using BiQ’s Rank Tracking to keep track of your site traffic. Your ranking should correspond to your site traffic and will be a good indicator of the increase or drop based on your ranking. 

This will let you keep an eye on the competitors who are trying to steal your keywords while tracking algorithm changes and other anomalies. 

More importantly, these keywords should also inform you which are the relevant keywords you should be targeting. As you are already ranking high for these keywords, Google sees you as the authority for the topic and you might want to get an extra boost when you optimize or create content for related keyword groups. 

b. Keywords your competitors are ranking for, but you don’t

This list consists of your keyword opportunities. Your competitors most likely have done the SEO and identify the valuable keywords that your audiences are searching for. 

So make sure to identify decent volume, valuable keywords missing from your list and add them to your keyword strategy. You can target them by analyzing Google’s search results and finding gaps that will allow you to create better content. 

On the other hand, if there are keywords you have already created content for but have still yet to rank high, analyze your ranking competitors’ keywords and identify if there are any missing keywords you should be optimizing into your existing content to make it more relevant. 

For both scenarios, we recommend using BiQ’s Content Intelligence that will make the writing and optimizing process much easier. It offers WordGraph analysis which will automatically compare your content to the Top 10 rankings and provide suggestions to improve.  

At the same time, take the chance to understand the keyword strategy your competitors have and decipher their tactics to get high traffic. 

Overall, you should get insights and identify the differences between each domain’s ranking keywords. Look into your data and see what kind of keywords are each domain ranking for? 

For example, is your domain ranking better for long-tail or short-tail keywords? What about your competitors’? How many keywords does your competitor include in their content? and more.

The key is to identify patterns and find search terms that you may have missed. 

Often, many marketers target high volume keywords but you also want to pay attention to low search, high intent keywords as well. 

Just imagine if you are an ecommerce store selling trainers, there are obvious phrases like brands and models of shoes that all your competitors will be targeting, but what about the specific long-tail keywords?

For example, extra-small shoe sizes, specific styles of shoes like cricket cleats. These phrases may not have a high volume of traffic, but by nature, they have high intent and are more likely to convert compared to keywords like Nike shoes. 

You want to make sure you discover these hidden keywords during your gap analysis. 

4. Understand The Types of Consumer Behavior In Your Industry

Now before you begin creating content for these keywords, there are 4 types of consumer behaviors you should know to better build your marketing funnel:

• Routine Shopping – Regular purchases done by consumers, this behavior is associated with low product pricing and shows low involvement without the need for much research. An example would be grocery shopping at the supermarket or buying snacks.
• Limited Decision Making – Buying products occasionally. Consumers in this category are purchasing something that costs more but is not expensive and will require a moderate amount of time for research, often through recommendations as they make the purchase. For example, buying clothes or looking for a good Mexican food place. 
• Extensive Decision Making – Products in this category are usually unfamiliar to customers, expensive, and not frequently bought. This may take a longer time for research and consumers will be looking at multiple factors such as checking product ratings, asking friends and professionals for more information, comparing options before making the final decision. 
• Impulse Buying – Impulse buyers often show the tendency of a customer making purchasing decisions at the spur of the moment, without planning in advance. These purchase decisions are often triggered by emotions or feelings. 

Knowing this, your digital marketing interactions should be founded based on these 4 types of buying behavior. 

Let’s say you are targeting impulse buyers, your sales page copywriting then should focus on triggering your customer’s emotions and place emphasis on limited-time offers.

5. Use the Discovered Hidden Keywords

Finally, one last important lesson is that even if you have your keywords, you need to learn how to use your keywords with the right type of content to convert your audience into qualified leads.

While most SEOs often resort to written content, you should also use different content types like infographics, videos, and other forms of content that match the user’s search intent. 

According to a report by Wyzowl, 96% of people prefer watching an explainer video to learn more about a product or service and 84% of people say they made the decision to purchase a product or service after watching a brand’s video. 

Despite this, in 2021, we still only see 14% of businesses using videos in their marketing mix.

What’s most important here is to always meet the search intent of the target keyword and align it with what your consumers are looking for. And most importantly, use these hidden keywords in your marketing to invoke a specific consumer behavior you want to target. 

Read how to drive more organic traffic to your site on our recent blog.

Key Takeaway: Use Keyword Gap Analysis to Target Buyer Keywords and Shape Consumer Behavior

As the business world evolves, so do consumer habits and tastes. What stays the same is that consumer behavior is still the most vital component to crafting a great marketing campaign.

Digital marketing is about basing decisions on actual data. Understanding your consumer behaviors can deliver insights that will help you make better digital marketing decisions that drive action. 

By integrating competitive keyword analysis and consumer behavior, your business can get an unprecedented advantage over your competitors in terms of product visibility and conversion. 

So what are you waiting for? Start implementing keyword gap analysis into your marketing strategy today with RankingGap!

You can learn more about our keyword gap analysis strategies in our main blog here.

Updated: 31 July 2021

Want to increase your sales and rankings at the same time? If so, you should consider giving the sales pages of your website a tune-up.

Maybe you don’t have a sales page on your website. Or maybe your sales page needs some work. An incomplete or non-existent sales page is going to hurt your sales. Period.

Websites that neglect to write strong sales pages for their products or services leave customers confused, wanting more, or unsure of what to do next.

I’m going to give you the full breakdown of how to create a killer sales page that’s designed to convert customers, drive sales, and improve the user-experience of your website. It’s a win-win-WIN.

Let’s get to it!

What Is a Sales Page (And Why Should You Have One)?

A sales page is an individual page on your website for each product or service your business offers.

The point of this page is to connect with a potential customer, address everything they would want to know about the product or service you offer, remove any doubts they may have, and guide them to a sale.

A sales page has the potential to dramatically increase your conversions and rankings, but if it’s not done effectively it could hurt your business. Here are the most common mistakes I see with sales pages:

1. There is no designated page on the website that discusses the service or product
2. All of the services or products have been lumped together onto one page
3. They’ve tried to optimize the sales page for all of the keywords related to the products/services which causes the page to cannibalize itself

If done right, here’s how a killer sales page will help you.

Improved SEO

If you create an individual sales page for each product or service you offer, it will increase your ranking ability.

When you have an individual page for each service, Google will be able to index and rank each page when a customer searches for that service.

Google rankings have a direct impact on your page visits. So the higher you rank, the more visitors you’ll get to your website.

Customer Satisfaction

An individual page for your service or product will also improve the user’s experience on your website.

A page for each service makes it easier to navigate your website. Users like information right at their fingertips, so if anything is difficult to find or confusing to operate they’ll jump right off the page.

If you make it simple and easy, they’ll stay on the page longer–giving you a better chance of achieving a sale.

Now that you know why it’s useful, let’s get into how to create one.

Sales Page Template

A killer sales page highlights the following sections:

1. A Headline
2. An Overview
3. Benefits/Features
4. How it Works
5. Testimonials
6. Pricing
7. A Guarantee
8. CTA (Call to Action)

That said, each product or service can vary significantly, so some sections may not be applicable to you. It is up to you to determine which of these sections you’ll need for your sales page.

Let’s break these sections down step-by-step.

1. Grab Attention & Make An Impression With A Bold Headline

It’s not enough to get a customer to land on your website. The biggest challenge you’ll face is getting them to stay there (and better yet, buy your product or service).

The problem is that the average person spends around 10 seconds on a web page. Those first 10 seconds are meant to assess the page’s validity and usefulness to them. Users are hardwired to bounce from web page to web page because they know most web pages are useless.

If you don’t grab the attention of your customer within the first 10 seconds, they will be long gone before you can say the words “20% OFF!”

That’s where a powerful headline comes in.

Hook Them in With a Catchy Headline

Your headline should be a brief statement of the service or product you offer, and should be catchy enough to grab the interest of the customer.

If a website says “Dog Boarding in St. Pete, FL” and another says “The Most Trusted Dog Boarding Facility in St. Pete FL” which one is the customer more likely to click on? Probably the second one.

If you are creating a local service page, be sure to include the city or region in your headline as well.

Finally, make sure your headline contains your targeted keyword and is formatted with the <h1> tag.

Include a Subhead

Now you’ll need to expand on your headline and answer the question “What benefit will my customer receive?”

Customers are looking for solutions to their problems. If your customer doesn’t know how you’re going to help them right from the beginning, you’ll lose their business.

Keep your subhead short, sweet, and to the point. No more than two sentences. And then format it with the <p> tag.

2. Provide Them With a Quick Overview

When people land on a web page, they are looking to access information quickly and easily. Make sure your page is set up to help someone skim for information.

Your page will need an overview after the headline. This gives the customer a general idea of what they can expect from the page and whether or not it will be useful to them.

Create a Section Headline for the Overview

This should be a compelling headline that encompasses the main problem or solution.

If my page headline is “The Most Trusted Dog Boarding Facility in St. Pete FL” then my Overview Headline might be “Leave Your Dog With People You Can Trust”.

What’s my problem? I don’t want to leave my dog with some sketchy stranger (a valid concern).

What’s the solution? I need to choose a dog-boarding facility with trusted professionals.

Your section headline should use an <h2> tag.

Briefly Describe the Problem and the Solution

Now you need to identify the problem and offer a solution to introduce your product or service.

If my headline is “Leave Your Dog With People You Can Trust” my description might sound something like this:

Address the problem. Acknowledge the solution. Offer the service to help.

Finish Strong With a CTA

Don’t know what a CTA is? Pay attention, because you’re going to need this.

A CTA is a Call to Action. It gets the customer to do something. Do you want your customer to call you? To fill out an online form? To book an appointment?

Give them the tool to do it!

If a customer has to spend more than a couple of seconds combing through your website to find the right link, you’ll risk losing them to a competitor.

People want quick access to what they need. So make their life as easy as possible to keep them on the page.

End your Overview with a CTA like this:

[Call Us Today: 888-988-8909]

-or-

[Schedule a Free Consultation Now]

And then link your CTA accordingly.

3. Let Them Know Why Your Product or Service Is The Best

Odds are you’ve got a lot of competitors out there, and your customer will undoubtedly be weighing their options.

Why should they choose your service/product over the X amount of options out there?

You need to highlight the reasons your service is THE BEST hands down. How do you do that? By spotlighting the benefits or features of your service.

Add a Compelling Benefit or Feature Headline

Don’t get lazy here. This is your selling point. If the customer sees a section that just says “Benefits” they’ll likely keep scrolling.

Be specific and make it POP!

Try something like:

• “Fast and Reliable Service”
• “Data-Driven Strategy”

The customer should read the headline and instantly want to know more.

Don’t forget to format your headline with an <h2> tag.

Highlight the Feature or Benefit With a Quick Description

One of the biggest mistakes you can make here is drone on and on and on about why your product or service is soooo great.

Nobody is going to read a huge wall of text. It’s an eye-sore. And as previously mentioned, no one wants their time wasted.

Your description should get straight to the point about why you’re their best option.

Keep your sentences short and straightforward and add bullet points when you can. This should be as easy to read as possible.

Here’s an example:

See what I mean? Quick. Easy to read. Attention to the highlights. Done.

4. Walk Them Through Your Process

Now that the customer knows what they’re buying, you’ll want to show them the process.

If they don’t know where to start or what to expect, they might jump to a different site. So break down the process and make it fool-proof.

Create a Headline for Your Process

This Headline doesn’t need to be complicated. You can use “Our Process” or “How it Works” to start it off.

You want the customer to know exactly what this section is about.

This will use the <h2> tag.

Breakdown Your Process Steps

The worst thing you can do here is confuse or overwhelm your customer. You want them to feel like this process is going to be a walk in the park!

If your process shows a ton of complicated steps, they’re going to run in the other direction to find someone who makes it easy.

Use the <h3> tag to format your process steps, and then break down the step in a sentence or two.

It’s easier than it seems. Here’s a visual:

Sounds easy, right? Now the customer feels good getting started.

5. Give The Buyer Confidence With Social Proof

The customer will be looking for proof that they can trust YOU, so now’s your chance to convince them with some testimonials.

If you have any positive feedback from previous customers, show it off. If you don’t, you can include a snippet about your business that will help establish trust.

You want them to think, “If other people like it, I probably will too!”

Start With a Trust-Building Headline

Yeah, you could say “Customer Testimonials” but where’s the fun in that? Your headline has just as much potential to build trust as the actual proof does.

Kick it up a notch with “We Are Your Best Choice for Your Pet.”

And then add that <h2> tag.

Show off a Little

Now you can share your testimonials. If you have a lot–kudos to you–try to narrow it down to your top two or three.

A good rule of thumb is to choose testimonials that highlight the benefits or features you talked about earlier on in the page.

Remember to get the point across quickly and efficiently. Too much text and the customer will stop reading.

6. Clearly Address Pricing

If the customer has made it this far into your sales page, they’re going to be wondering about the cost.

If you don’t address the pricing upfront, or if you tiptoe around it because you’re worried about spooking the customer, you might lose the customer.

Instead, build trust with them by staying honest and direct with the pricing section.

Add a Pricing Headline

Now is not the time to get fancy. Call the pricing section what it is. “Pricing” “Packages and Pricing” or another headline that clearly introduces the pricing.

You can even pose the exact question the customer will ask, like “How Much Does It Cost To XYZ?”

Format it with the <h2> tag and you’re set.

Give a Price Breakdown

Clearly show the pricing for the service or product, or address how the pricing is calculated and where to find it.

If the pricing requires a quote or contact to the business–explain it while being as straightforward as possible.

Here’s an example:

Simple, yet informative.

7. Risk-Reversal With A Guarantee

If your company has a Guarantee, this is a great way to start wrapping up your page.

If the customer has doubts, a guarantee will help put their mind at ease. The fewer the doubts the customer has, the easier it will be to secure their business.

A Guarantee should look like this:

If you do not have a guarantee, go ahead and skip this part (or consider creating one!).

8. Finish Off Strong With A Final CTA

Wrap your page up with a killer CTA. This is the final move to lock in your customer.

Create Your Final Headline

This is the last thing the customer sees. Finish it off with a powerful headline that compels the customer to do something.

Be sure to format it with the <h2> tag.

Sum It Up

In one to two sentences, sum up your page and give them the next step to take action.

Your final CTA can look like this:

And you’re done!

Conclusion

Our sales page guide is one of many you’ll find online–but we can assure you that this template will boost sales and convince customers to buy your service or product.

If you want help creating a killer sales page for your website, you’re going to love our HOTH Web Copy product.

Let us know your thoughts in the comments below. We love hearing from you!

As digital marketers, we have all been there — stuck on what to do next and trying to reinvent the wheel. We know what it is like to run out of ideas, to try every strategy, to test every new feature until we get to that point where we have done it all. And then what?

What if I tell you that in order to come out on top, you don’t need to reinvent things? What if you can try something new while barely changing the way you do things now? What I am talking about is keeping in place all the strategies you know work, along with all the content you know sells, and then simply translating them into the second-most spoken language in the United States.

Español.

Why should we focus on Spanish over all other languages?

This is a very fair question as there are hundreds of languages spoken in households all across the United States. Over 20% of Americans are bilingual and this segment of the population has more than doubled in the last 30 years. Additionally, the percentage of languages spoken at home is on the rise, from Spanish to Tagalog.

With so many language options to choose from, the reason I am focusing on Spanish is because, besides English, it is the most commonly-spoken language in the United States.

And since we are on the subject of bilingual speakers, I have a myth to bust. Most marketers believe that bilingual strategies will only be effective in major metropolitan areas. For this reason, it is not uncommon to see billboard and public transit ads in other languages posted in New York City or Los Angeles. However, these same billboard and public transit ads are not utilized outside major cities and, furthermore, are rarely used in digital marketing. But when you look at the map of the United States and evaluate the number who speak a foreign language at home, you can find pockets of speakers in every state. In fact, the state with the largest percentage increase of foreign language speakers at home was Nevada with a 1,088% increase since 1980. 

The Hispanic population is made up of 60.5 million people which comprises nearly 20% of the country’s population. The United States has more Spanish speakers than every country other than Mexico. Hispanics are the fastest growing segment of the U.S. population; for every two people added to the population, one is Hispanic.

Hispanics represent 20 different nationalities, but the U.S. population has a large percentage coming from Mexico, Cuba, and Puerto Rico.

The Hispanic consumer is very important to the U.S. economy because they control $1.5 trillion in buying power. This is up 212% from the last decade! Not only that, their consumption of products and services has increased by 42% in the same time period. Additionally, studies show that 66% of U.S. Hispanics pay attention to online ads and — more importantly — 93% take action after seeing the ads online, rendering them an incredible asset to the world of digital marketing. 

The real question we need to be asking ourselves is, if they represent such a significant portion of our online population, why is no one talking to them online? They represent a significant portion of the population, they have money, and they have a big desire to spend it. 

Why should digital marketers invest in Spanish?

 

Let’s dig into how to actually implement the strategy (that is not technically a strategy).

Setting up a campaign correctly

Like with any experiment, we need to follow the scientific method and separate our variables. These campaigns should be treated as a test and each language should be tested out separately. The test budget I recommend is 20-30% of what you would normally spend in a campaign. In terms of their setup, there are a few nuances we want to watch out for when considering bilingual campaigns. In the language setting, I like to add the language I am testing, as well as the main language of the country; in this case, English.

Another important thing to consider when setting up ad scheduling, is time zones. Google Ads and Bing Ads treat this feature very differently. In Google, we are looking at the time zone in which the account is created and, in Bing, the time zone of the end user. If you are testing bilingual and international campaigns, make sure you are not scheduling them during times your target audience is sleeping.

The rest is quite easy because you have already done the heavy lifting and testing. You will keep the structure the same and begin by simply selecting a few of your best-performing ad groups, or 30-50 of the top-performing keywords.

Translation

Translating ads is costly unless you can do it yourself. I know that not everyone has the knowledge or confidence to do it on their own, so I usually recommend a free tool like Google Translate. Even as a native speaker, I use this tool to double check my own work.

Free tools like Google Translate do a great job, but can be very time-consuming if a large amount of keywords or ad copy translation is needed. One of my favorite hacks in Google Sheets is using the Google Translate function. GoogleTranslate allows you to, in seconds, translate everything efficiently.

I always suggest having a native Spanish speaker double check your work if possible because, like all languages, the meaning and words can vary greatly, depending where you are from. 

I attended the Women in Search and Digital Marketing Speak My Language Conference and learned that the word we use in the United States for pants is not the same everywhere else. If you were to use that same word in the United Kingdom, you would instead be referring to underpants.If you are a clothing retailer in the United Kingdom, this is vital information. You could be bidding on a word with incorrect intent, missing out on all the good clicks by not using the proper term — trousers. That is just one example of the importance of using the correct verbiage in a multilingual country. Within the Spanish language, 20 countries are represented, and so a term as simple as bus may be completely different elsewhere, depending on your country of origin.

Even if you do not have a Spanish coworker or friend to assist you, there are some noteworthy places to ask for help. Twitter and Reddit have large communities with people from all over the world to help translate or double check your work.

Important Ad Copy Considerations

Crafting the correct ad copy is important when reaching any audience, but crafting the perfect message in a language that may not be your own is a Herculean task. Thankfully, the Spanish speakers in the United States are an easy audience to work with. Though they are used to consuming their online media in English, the majority are at home speaking purely Spanish, or at least bilingually, with low expectations in regards to the quality of the online content. Fifty-two percent are using English browser settings, not as a preference, but because they have no other choice. 

When viewing ads, 88% of Hispanics will pay attention regardless of language when it includes an aspect of their culture. Obviously, the best practice here is to translate your ads 100%, but I also believe it is ok to translate 50% or even to not translate at all. The goal we are trying to achieve here is to show searchers quality information the first time they try looking for it. In the SERP, it is ok to have an English ad pointing to a Spanish keyword, because you will most likely be one of the few trying to fight for that space and make it to the top. It is better to have a well-written English ad than a Spanish ad with mistakes.

Mobile 

Hispanics spend two more hours per week using their smartphones than all other demographics in the United States. Having a mobile plan is key to reach this audience. In fact, 68% of Hispanics who are searching on Google do it on a mobile device. Bidding higher on mobile, crafting mobile-specific ads, and creating Call-Only Campaigns could prove very successful as a bilingual mobile strategy.

YouTube

Advertising on YouTube is an essential part of reaching the Hispanic audience of the United States. Why? Because according to Neilsen, more Hispanics watch YouTube than any other cable network. When creating video content, we have good news — there is no need to translate these ads (which is a much more complex endeavor than text translation). Sixty percent of Hispanics watch content in English the majority of the time. Don’t forget to award yourself bonus points for including aspects of Hispanic culture to videos targeted to this audience!

What I find is interesting is how 75% of Hispanics use YouTube to learn about new products and to make informed purchasing decisions.

As you can see, Spanish PPC is a powerful way to connect with new users without having to break your formula or the bank. It also has another huge benefit — it opens the door to making searching online accessible for all. By simply translating or including elements of a different culture into keywords and ads, we are extending an open invitation for people to feel comfortable and catered to when searching online.