Welcome to the Fathom Blog

News & analysis on digital marketing & analytics

Why You Should Run Mobile PPC Campaigns

By Joe Castro | March 30, 2012

If you’re not running mobile PPC campaigns, you’re definitely behind your competition. Mobile ad spending will increase to $4.39 billion by 2015 (eMarketer, September 2011). In addition, according to Google/OTC, over 50% of searchers’ purchases were as a result of a smartphone search in the U.S (The Mobile Movement, U.S, 4/2011).

Today, many advertisers are running mobile paid search campaigns within Google AdWords. However, the majority of advertisers are running mobile campaigns within the same campaigns as desktop/laptop targeting. This is a big no-no for the following reasons:

1. Bidding is Different: Only 2 ads show on most smartphones (and sometimes up to 3 ads under all the organic listings at the very bottom), so you have to bid higher (in some cases) to make sure your ad is appearing. In desktop/laptops SERPs, as many as 10 or 11 ads will show on the first page (up to 3 at the top plus ads on the right side)!

2. Better Understanding of ROI: Although you may segment by device when targeting desktop/laptop campaigns in the same campaign, doing this still makes it more difficult to know how each is doing individually vs. having completely separate campaigns.

3. Click 2 Call: Targeting just mobile devices allows you to have ads where users can click from the ads without actually having to visit your website. This is very important if you have a better close rate via your call center/customer service representatives or if you lack a mobile site or landing page.

4. Mobile-Specific Landing Pages: If you have a mobile-specific website or landing page, it is definitely necessary you have mobile campaigns separated from desktop computers, as Google cannot automatically detect the difference.

5. Mobile-Specific Ad Copy: By having a separate mobile PPC campaign, you can tailor your ads by audience. You may want to use different calls-to-action, such as “Call Today,” that relate to your users’ intent and capabilities.

Still not convinced to try mobile advertising? Look at the graph below to see mobile purchases after ad exposure by industry. (From ROI Research, Inc. & Microsoft, Multi Country Mobile Advertising Research Study, March 2011):

The Process of Production

By Chad Paul | March 29, 2012

For most of us, video has become something we see on a daily basis. With the overflow of amateur video flooding social media outlets, the art of professional video production is often taken for granted.  Professionally there are three very important stages when creating video: pre-production, production and post-production.

• Pre-production is more or less the “planning” part of a production; it is an integral part of how the production itself will run. The pre-production stage includes thinking of everything that will be needed for the production itself. A few major steps included in pre-production consist of conceptualization, scriptwriting, and storyboarding.
• Production is the stage where the actual filming of the video begins. It’s taking all of the preparation that was involved in the pre-production process and applying it. There’s a lot more involvement in production than just filming, though: for example, lighting, staging, audio, etc. This is the bulk of the three stages of production, where the vision really starts materializing.
• Post-production is the stage in which you collectively gather all of the footage that you’ve filmed to begin the editing process. There are other aspects besides footage involved in the post-production process. For instance, audio, color correction and optimization. All of these techniques are instrumental to creating a finished product for delivery.

A lot of time is dedicated to each of the three stages of production. I’ve only mentioned a few out of many assets that are included in each one of these processes. So, the next time you watch a professional video, it’s safe to assume that the production process was at least twice as long as the actual video itself.

Tip: If you want to stand out against the amateur uploads across social media platforms, don’t skip the small stuff and use every step of this production process for a better quality of video.

NE Ohio Businesses Look Largely to Net for Leads

By Paul Richlovsky | March 29, 2012

New survey data from Fathom and Smart Business show a vast majority of Northeast Ohio businesses count the Internet as the most important source of sales leads.*  Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Internet defeated traditional sources like direct mail, radio and TV by a 2:1 margin. This margin increased to more than 3:1 when the same businesses projected the most important sources of leads 3 years into the future.

If the respondents—83% of whom belong to the “C-level”—have any accurate sense of where their richest marketing opportunities are going (and recent Forrester research suggests they do), then businesses across the spectrum will be relying on the Internet for lead-gen with growing dependency in the near future. Consider your own current marketing strategy: Are you reaching and captivating your potential audience with the right mix of inbound, outbound, and automated (i.e. nurturing) marketing?

As far as your Internet presence is concerned, is your site user-friendly? Do you have readable, Web-appropriate copy? Do you offer select paths for different user personas? How well are you catering to different stages of a buying cycle, B2B or B2C? How about the utility and desirability of your content?

NE Ohio has spoken. Are you listening? If the Internet is going to be the most important source of your sales leads, make sure that your business is ready to navigate the digital world with a steady hand.

*Results compiled from an October 2011 magazine wrapper questionnaire with 400+ respondents. For full details, please download the Fathom-Smart Business survey summary (PDF).

Results: What Every Business Should Demand of Its Marketing

By Paul Richlovsky | March 28, 2012

When talking about SEO as a product, Fathom’s founder, the late Bill Fox, was fond of an analogy back in the early days of the company. In his best CEO voice, I remember him telling me in my first week on the job:

“Selling SEO is like selling beer: you’ve got the 6-pack, you’ve got the 12-pack, and you’ve got the case.”

What did this mean? At the time (2006), SEO consisted largely of keywords and rankings, and Fathom (along with the industry in general) priced its services accordingly: by volume. If you wanted the 6-pack, we’d focus our SEO on 25 keywords. If you wanted the 12-pack, it was 50 words, and so on. Companies appreciated the cut-and-dry pricing, knowing we were accountable for getting results (i.e. rankings) for a specific number and type of keywords.

As time went on, the nature of SEO changed (see 2009 to 2011 alone), and hence our approach to practicing it, along with the concept of results and associated pricing structures. Today, it’s all about the revenue and value we can drive through your website (and the profitability of that revenue). Whether it’s helping improve your sales cycle, grow your business, boost your e-commerce transactions, or any other company goal, your marketing vendors (and/or your marketing department itself) should be helping you try to meet it.

You’ll hear many in the industry correctly talk about how SEO is not a turnkey fix or a short-term operation. This argument stems from a “big-tent” definition of SEO (as opposed to what Rand Fiskin calls pure SEO—see “associated pricing”  link above) that includes many accompanying sub-disciplines in the digital marketing school: usability, conversion, research & analytics, social media, Web design & development, to name a few. In other words, SEO isn’t done in isolation. It requires coordination of many elements to be truly sustainable with a desirable ROI. And yes, you’re right, another fashionable term to use for these marketing elements is inbound marketing.

Sustainability

Here’s one more word for you: Sustainability. This word captures the ethos of Fathom’s approach to marketing. We don’t care as much about your business’s one-off campaigns or random isolated successes as about driving long-term results in line with your marketing strategy. SEO today should be more about your business objectives than any single list of keywords or set of ranking reports. Rankings are in flux all the time and also vary wildly based on factors like user location, past history, and social connections (and whether a person is signed in).

There are still ways to obtain (and maintain) great search-engine rankings, but the real question is, How well does your website meet your business objectives? When you get visitors, do you have well defined paths for them, or are they left to guess and flounder? Are your company mission and offerings clearly stated?  Do you leave a positive first impression and build credibility with each step or repeat visit? Do you reward loyalty or offer ways for your audience to keep in touch (email, social channels, blog posts, podcasts, other RSS content)?

Beware the door-to-door sales approach to SEO, and pose these questions to your marketing department (or vendor) before you spring for that set of Ginsu knives.

Losing Rank? Over-Optimization Might Be Your Problem

By Kurt Krejny | March 23, 2012

Google recently announced they are working on a search ranking penalty for sites that are “over-optimized” or “overly SEO’ed”. Read the recap on Search Engine Land.

As a full-service digital agency, with our roots in SEO, Fathom is used to the changes and is prepared to react quickly if we see drops in organic keyword rankings. After all, one of our core values is “Make Order From Chaos“. We saw this update coming a few months ago and put measures in place with our sites before the vague Google news hit the internet.

Our efforts to understand the changes (and taking action quickly) can be beneficial to others dealing with the same updates by Google. Well-aligned optimization tactics are what it took over the years to rank for highly competitive keywords, and those tactics are still important… however we can expect Google to continue to make changes to overly optimized sites with the intention to improve their search results and drop rankings for low value content. Below are some practical tips to help you in efforts to “un-optimize” your high traffic landing pages that have dropped a few spots in the organic keyword rankings. If your site pages have low value content and have been de-indexed from Google completely, there may be bigger issues at hand that this post will not solve.

The Situation:

You have secured a top 10 competitive keyword ranking for a long while, and the ranking has dropped, and worse yet… the ranking URL has changed. You feel the intended ranking page is optimized to the best of its ability, and the inbound links support the keyword focus, yet you are scratching your head as to why your aligned efforts aren’t moving the needle.

The Reality:

Google is constantly making algorithmic changes and you are at their mercy. Ranking reports and ongoing analysis allow you to review trends as they relate to keyword rankings. Sometimes proper tweaking of content or more inbound links can move the needle in the right direction – but there is a need to dive deeper if you are at a standstill or the rankings continue to drop. With the flip of a switch Google can decide to rank a lesser desired page, but in Google’s eyes the page is more naturally optimized, and not “over-optimized”.

What to Check:

• Determine what’s common among the top 10 ranked results? (How does your site compare?)
  • Title tag, description/snippet, on-page content, inbound links and quality, social media shares, domain authority, freshness of content, keyword density, does the homepage or interior page rank?
• Review keyword synonyms highlighted in the SERPs
• What are strong keyword modifiers that are still ranking? Here are some tools to help find keyword variations:
  • Google Analytics > Entrance Keywords to Landing Pages
  • Google Webmaster Tools > Your site on the web > Search queries
  • Google Suggest
  • Google Related Searches
• Do you have top rankings for the keyword modifiers? Can these offset the drop in the strategic keyword ranking while you are revising your optimization tactics? Can these keywords reinforce the strategic keyword ranking?
• Take a technical deep dive looking at crawling issues and internal linking structure
• Perform an on-page ranking analysis using tools, data and experience (why did Google decide to rank a page that isn’t as good of a fit?)

Start Testing:

• Use the data above to start revising the way you optimized your pages that have recently dropped – think about creating sustainable content!
• Get all the SEO foundation basics and technical optimization cleaned up
• Start lowering the keyword density and closely check the keyword ranking movement, traffic and conversions
• Tweak the anchor text on inbound links to be more natural (remove low value links)
• Tweak the anchor text on internal links to be more natural (do you have too many links pointing to a select few pages?)

Long Term Solution:

• Re-evaluate your information architecture and directory structure. This could be preventing proper crawling and competitive keyword rankings
• Remove any technical and crawling roadblocks. Review site load time. Poor usability could be a hindrance as well.

Tools for Support:

• SEO analysis tools – BrightEdge, SEOmoz, Raven Tools, etc.
• Google Analytics
• Google Webmaster Tools
• SERP spot checks
• Firefox and Chrome plugins for quick spot checks of your site and competitors (i.e. Search Status)

Are there other keyword optimization tactics or experiences you would like to share? Please leave a comment below!