Managing an Online Presence: Online Strategy for Entrepreneurs Anthony Davis, Peter Kotzeff

Bishops University

Table Of Contents Abstract Website Management

Importance of Proper Design Personalization Responsiveness

Website Design The Landing Page Optimization

Anatomy of a Landing Page Click Through Lead Generation

Online Advertisement Social Media Management Advantages of Social Media Presence

Facebook Ads Create Tools Pages

Twitter LinkedIn

Networking Talent & Marketing Solutions

Google Adwords How companies use Adwords Overview Strategies Best practices

Bing Ads Search Engine Optimization

What it is Advantages of SEO Tools to succeed

Google Analytics Value to Entrepreneurs Key performance indicators

Conclusion

1

Abstract

Online business management is a operation that is extremely difficult for new

entrepreneurs or small business to operate most efficiently.Questions such as “how do I maintain

a strong presence on the internet?”,“is advertising online really necessary?”, and “why are

analytics and remarketing so important in Marketing 3.0?” are all areas that will be This paper

will outline some key important aspects of managing your business online and how

entrepreneurs can utilize these tools to move their business forward.

Website Management Business’ need to understand the importance of properly building

a website and how it can influence purchase or travel habits to your business. Landing Page

Optimization breaks down the outline of how your landing page should be designed to encourage

webflow and conversions for your business.

Social Media Management: Social Media has been incorporated into today’s society as

a tool to stay connected and informed to events and others by the internet. entrepreneurs can

utilize these platforms to target certain consumers as well as create a domain for consumers to

interact with yourself or your product.

Online Advertising: Advertising on the online market has become a useful option that

companies have utilized to stimulate success. Google Adwords as well as Bing Ads ( Pay Per

Click/Impression) Ads are an essential part to any marketing mix in todays marketplace. the use

of these channels can create leads, foster engagement and increase awareness. One of the

advantages of online advertising is its traceability. With programs like google analytics it is very

easy to monitor your advertising campaigns and capitalize on the most effective campaign.

2

Analytics: Creating an online presence is a large investment in both time and money.

For businesses to make this investment they must be able to measure its effect on sales. There are

several different tools which can be used to asses website functionality and to monitor the

effectiveness of online marketing. Google analytics is a free tool which is a good starting point

for companies but there are several other tools which can be used in conjunction to provide

further insight.

Managing an online presence

How many times have you ever gone onto your computer, typed a few words into google,

quickly struck enter, found a website you’d like to travel to, and found you’ve landed on a page

that’s completely not relevant to what you were searching for? Or worse yet, finding yourselves

on the internets most hated internet page, the 404 Error Page not found? Well great. Not only

have you found yourself at a standstill, but you’ve now wasted time out of your day to go to a

website created by some organization, only to be directed to the wrong place. Tell you what,

There will be a sour taste in their mouth every time they think about your brand because they’ll

think back to that time of high hopes dashed by the performance and poor design of your web

presence. In a world where information is always being thrown at us, or new opportunities are

being opened for us, questions arise and searches on the web lead consumers to a solution that

they can be satisfied with. But how does a company do that? The purpose of this paper is to

identify major parts of an online presence and how to properly use and maintain them to improve

business success.

3

Web Design Management

Landing Page­ page implemented to create web conversions

Click Through­ a type of landing page leading users to a specific area on the site

Lead Generation­ a type of landing page that is utilized to gain consumer information

Web Design­ utilizing responsiveness and accuracy to deliver the optimal browsing

experience

Conversions­ when a recipient of a targeted audience commits a desired action

PPC­ Pay per click

Importance of Web Design

With hundreds of thousands of websites on the internet, Research shows that it generally

takes a user only 50 milliseconds to develop an impression of a website and decide whether he or

she likes it (Lindgaard, Fernandes, Dudek, & Brown, 2006). It has becoming a challenge to

entrepreneurs and other smaller companies alike; how do we separate ourselves online from the

other guy? It is one of the first and largest frustrations that all companies will face in their

entrance into the industry. There are two subjects that must be considered when designing your

website; responsiveness and personalization.

Personalization separates your brand and product from others within the industry. When

users arrive to a website, it is important that their experience is memorable as well as easy

enough to encourage users to return. User experience (UX) is the sum of a series of interactions a

person has with a product, service, or organization (Moule, 2012). When understanding user

experience there are several factors that affect the overall experience a user has with a product

(Moule, 2012).

4

For this paper, our product will be our online presence (website, social networks). When

arriving at a new website, there are first impressions we create in regards to appearance as well

as functionality. It is crucial that when individuals land to a website, that it has been personalized

to better suit the customers’ needs: aesthetically and emotionally. Entrepreneurs need to analyze

the aesthetics of their website. Is the visual appearance of the product and its design appealing to

the user (Moule, 2012)? Entrepreneurs also must focus on how their website makes people feel

emotionally. When users land to your website, are the emotional feelings evoked in response to

the product and the brand positive? Do they have a lasting impact on the user and their

willingness to use the product (Moule 2012)? Because of the over saturation of websites on the

internet, it is important that users feel that they have arrived at the right place when they land on

a website. When a websites displays a certain culture or idea that doesn’t align with the

consumers’ ideals, they are forced to find a new place to find a solution. When designing a

website, it is useful to include some external participants who will be using the website in the

future. But why bother take the time and money to do this? The earlier that users likely to be

using your products evaluate your designs, the less likely it is you’ll have to go back and rework

them (Moule, 2012). Many business will make the fighting argument that the reason why their

online presence is not at its peak performance because they lack the time to get to know their

consumers. The problem here is that consumers are the purchasers of a business’ product and

services. Although an organization may have a superior product, if the network to communicate

to that organization is not strong enough or consumers do not have a proper means to learn about

this product, consumers will find other resources to meet their needs.

5

In our day and age, users can access online content from many different sources such as

computers, smartphones, and tablets. Because of the advancement in technologies, websites must

be responsive and usable on multiple platforms, applications, and OS’s to serve all of the

potential consumers. Although it may seem tedious, the work rewards itself. Business’ have

found that when optimizing the usability of their website that there was a direct correlation to the

increase in sales. The product must be useful with a clear outlined purpose as well as easy to

use—navigating within and interacting with—and requiring little need for guidance (Moule,

2012). By making sure these items have been analyzed and properly configured, entrepreneurs

can expect better click through rates and more conversions on their website. To close, Broadly

considering a user’s lifestyle and the overall context of how a product or service is used is

necessary if you want to improve on the experience you deliver (Moule,2012).

Landing Page Optimization

When users land on your companies page, ideally we want them to fall on what we call a

landing page. By definition, a landing page is a standalone page, extremely distinctive from your

sight that serves a single purpose. There are two “single purposes” that UX designers have

utilized to create measurable success for their companies. A landing page is a page designed to

carry out click through generation or lead through generation. Both pages have different

functionalities that can help generate conversions if used appropriately. Although their designs

are similar in nature, it is important to select either one or the other when designing a landing

page. It is crucial that users are not confused on what the main purpose of the page they're on.

Landing pages are visibly different from a regular home page. A home page is a central location

where visitors can access all of the information that they would need in one place. Unless the

6

user searches for the advertisers brand name, using the homepage as a landing page does make

for a strong context transfer (Becker, Broder, Gabrilovich, Pang, 2009) or increase conversion

rates. Unlike homepages, each landing page type offers different attributes that help lead them to

success (in their respective measurable variable). Conversion actions are measurable events on a

landing page that move a user toward the mission­critical activities and business goals that have

been identified (Page, Ginty, Ash 2012).

Click Through Landing Page

Click through landing pages are generally used to direct individuals to a single objective,

the call­to­action button. The call­to­action button is a clearly visible button that takes users to

another part of the website. Typically, the click through landing page is utilized by e­commerce

operations to welcome users to the idea of making a purchase and then directing them to do so.

Click through landing pages use the percentage of completed purchases to users landed on the

site as a metric to measure organizational success (Page, Ginty, Ash, 2012). Average rates

entrepreneurs should expect to see as a result of the incorporation of a click through landing page

is 1­2 percent (Page, Ginty, Ash 2012). The reason for this is due to the high commitment

purchasers must show to go from browser to customer in one visit. Although rates can grow to

anywhere between 15­25 percent (Page, Ginty, Ash 2012) when using click through landing

pages effectively, the lead generation landing pages offers some different benefits to that may be

more suitable for other business types.

7

Lead Generation

Lead generation landing pages serve as a different purpose than its counterpart, the click

through. Lead generation landing pages are tools used by organizations to capture important user

data to help position themselves better in the market for the future. Whereas click through

landing pages are used to push users to a call to action button, lead generation landing pages

encourage users to input personal information in the call­to­action area of the webpage to obtain

the product or services. Generally these products consist of into the webpage, an ebook, a free

trial, an online web registration, etc.

Anatomy of a Landing Page

Although click through and lead generation landing pages offer different benefits for

entrepreneur and companies alike, they are designed relatively the same. First, a large headline

(or unique selling proposition) which captures the attention of the user is positioned alongside a

small statement to remind you why you are here. By doing this, entrepreneurs are able to remind

users where they are and why they are on the in hopes to have them return. Secondly, a small

description of the benefits offered are often either highlighted or can be found with a small

scroll down the page. Throughout the landing page, media has become a new method to attract

users and engage them long enough to convince them to your call to action. Taulia has

uncovered that “we’ve found it’s easier to get people to press play and watch a minute long

video than it is to get them to download a white paper, let alone read that white paper! With a

video they get a version of our message in a compact, memorable format we can track.

(Vidyard). Videos and pictures of consumers using the product background quietly has also

8

become a new, useful tactic in landing page optimization. The amount of time each viewer

spends with each article tends to increase and the content itself becomes more approachable in

the video format (Delman, 2011). and has seen an 80% increase in conversion rates (VidYard).

In recent months, it has been discovered that when consumers enjoy the video content, they are

97% more likely to purchase and brand association increased by 139% (VidYard). In addition,

short testimonials from current users encourage them to finally make it to our destination, the

call­to­action button. Landing pages may have multiple placed within the page. This tactic is

generally utilized when the scrolling parallax page is used. Later in the paper we will discuss in

more detail what that is.

Practices

Although landing pages are extremely useful, they unfortunately cannot do all the work

on their own. Landing pages must be monitored and maintained to encourage its success on the

web. Over recent years, parallax scrolling has been a new tool used by web designers to increase

the pleasurable experiences users have on their websites. In 2015, professor from West

Layfayette Indiana conducted a study where individuals visited a website that incorporated

parallax scrolling versus one that did not. Although users stated that in terms of functionality,

both websites were the same, participants expressed that they enjoyed using the parallax website

as the experience was unique and more of a pleasurable experience (Frederick, Mohler,

Vorvoreanu,Glotzbach 2015). For more interesting and unique practices, be sure to check out

Unbounce at http://unbounce.com/landing­page­articles/landing­page­best­practices/.

9

Online Advertisement

What are your goals as an entrepreneur? Do you want to sell a product, build brand

awareness or direct people onto your site? With the many different tools available to an online

marketer, online technology is a powerful tool to help an entrepreneur accomplish these goals. In

this section we will discuss different social medias, Google's marketing platform Google

adwords, Yahoo Bing ads, search engine optimization, and how to measure the effectiveness of

all your ads.

Social Media Management

Over the past 5 years, social media has evolved from its original goal of connecting

friends. With social network originators such as MSN and MySpace setting the stage,

revolutionary networks have entered the market and have found a way to successfully overtake

it. Social Networks have seen an increase in business success due to key economic drivers (IBIS

2014). In 2014, social networks saw an increase of services conducted online by 10.1%. Due to

the continuing growth of internet data capabilities, more and more business is beginning to be

conducted online (IBIS 2014). Advertising practices have also evolved. Business’ are beginning

to cut costs of TV, magazine, and radio advertising as those mediums are being used less and

less by users globally. The internet usually provides a more cost­effective method of advertising

because it improves a company’s ability to directly target consumer groups and easily measure

results (IBIS WORLD 2015).

10

Business’ like Apple and Samsung have helped drive the increase of social media use

through the creation of mobile systems. These mobile systems contain cell phones, tablets, and

computers (laptops). By having these different types of systems available for consumers,

accessibility to these social networks is becoming much easier and more frequent. From

2009­2014, globally we saw a 36.8 percent increase in mobile internet connections (number of

consumers that have an internet capable device with a data plan) (IBIS 2014).

Social media consists of seven functional resources: identity, conversations, sharing,

presence, relationships, reputation, and groups (Kietzmann, Hermkens, McCarthy, & Silvestre,

2011). To successfully compete within the internet marketplace, it is key that these resources are

aligned with the business’ image and mission. Visitors will be confused when they head to a

network and are finding irrelevant content that does not fit the business’, or their own,

ideals.Visitors will begin to bounce from the platform and will find ways to avoid it. When those

seven functions are properly aligned, business’ are able to uncover social capital, customers’

revealed preferences, social marketing opportunities, and social corporate networking (Panigua,

2014). As a result, entrepreneurs and small business’ alike are able to improve their

corporate­social, financial, and operational performances (Panigua, 2014), There are a few that

have been highlighted for small business and entrepreneurs to utilize in the beginning phases of

internet marketing.The three networks that have been highlighted for entrepreneurs and small

business’ to begin using are Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

Facebook

Everybody has heard Facebook’s story. Launching in 2004, Harvard dropout creates

quick social platform to rate other colleagues in the area. On Facebook, users can add each other

11

as friends, and share multi media to each other’s “walls” such as music, videos, pictures, or text

about whatever comes to mind. Over the last 5 years, Facebook has made many talent

acquisitions to make their services run more smoothly and more desirable for new users to join.

Recently, Facebook has uncovered a key business opportunity which would help them generate

revenue: advertising. Last year, Facebook accounted 92.2 percent of its revenues in its

advertising department alone, due to the sheer mass of personal information that is accessible to

these business’ (IBIS World 2015). Today, the what was one small university idea has become a

network that has over 65 percent of the social media market share with 1.3 billion active users

worldwide with multiple sign­ins a day. A 2011 Webtrends study revealed that 68 percent of

Fortune 100 companies experienced a negative growth in unique visits in the last year, with an

average drop of 23 percent. (Nanda 2012). In a sampling of 44 of these companies, 40 percent

experienced higher traffic to their Facebook Pages. With this in mind, Facebook has become a

place of rapid opportunity for entrepreneurs and small business owners to drive online & local

sales, and raise brand awareness.

Facebook offers different tools to its users to run a marketing campaign. Facebook Ads

create tool is an application created by Facebook which helps individuals build an ad. Within it,

designers can select a target demographic (age, country, time, likes, preferences). As Chris

Paradisio states, No other platform allows you to get so granular with your target audience, and

an audience of over a billion is not one you want to ignore. (Paradisio, 2015). Now although

Facebook has implemented a pay per click cost (.25 $ USD) in these ads, Facebook claims an

increase of 40 percent of the number of ads their users had seen and the average global

12

click­through rate increased by 160 percent in Q1 of 2014 as compared to 2013 (Paradisio,

2015).

Arcade Brewery is a Chicago­based brewery that was initially launched in 2014.

Launching a new product, its new Festive Rogus Beer, the brewery was working how they would

promote this product in such a way that it would be costly not to have it. Arcade had something

special though. By using ads and boosted posts, the brewery decided it would specifically direct

individuals within the area who were craft and comic book fans. Arcade Brewery managed to

double its sales and within a matter of 4 days, the entire selection of the beer had run out. Not

only did they reach their goal of selling their new beer, online web traffic saw a growth of six

times. Facebook Ads gave them an opportunity to specifically marketing to certain individuals

and by doing so, raised their chances of success in gaining brand awareness and selling their

product. Facebook ads have not only helped drive success but their Pages program has as well.

Facebook Pages is a web application accessible to entrepreneurs and business’ owners to

create a domain where they can post information about the product or service that’s offered

within the social network. Facebook Pages’ main objectives is to reach out to your consumers,

build relationships with those consumers, and finally analyze those relationships with consumers

to improve on them for the future. BIA Kelsey’s 2010 Local Commerce Monitor data showed

that 48 percent of businesses had a Facebook Page (Nanda, 2012). With businesses worldwide

making the transition from no social presence to maintaining one, it is extremely advantageous to

be on the same playing field as other competitors. Facebook Pages also gives you access to

important business statistics about your consumers. With a simple click, entrepreneurs can get an

13

idea of basic page engagement, post reach, likes, and which people are visiting the page. This

information can be useful for better targeting your audience in the future or fine tuning media

content and ideals that better suit the organization and its consumers.

Twitter

Twitter is a social networking platform that allows users to micro­blog and post a “tweet”

that contains 140 characters. These tweets can contain either text or multi­media such as audio,

pictures or videos. Twitter is an excellent location for entrepreneurs and small business owners

because it allows for a communication space between the organization, and other users.

Although Facebook can accomplish this same goal, Twitter posts are shorter (140 characters vs

no limit) which allows for direct, straight to the point information for consumers to view, rather

than scrolling through a web page. Furthermore, if the company is attempting to push company

products such as ebooks, webinars, or a special event, Users are able to use Twitter’s Promoted

Services Suite. The Promoted Services suite allows business to create promoted accounts, tweets,

and trends.

Promoted accounts place your account on other tweeters timelines and chooses them by

their current interests, where they are geographically located (Strictly US) as well as other

individuals that they follow. Twitter will place your account in the “who to follow” area,

encouraging users to follow your account. Twitter boats a 90% retention rate when using

Promoted Accounts. Twitter also uses a cost per follow (CPF) payment process that requests on

average 2­3 dollars after every, where they ask individuals for a fee per follow acquired.

14

Promoted Tweets is another tool offered by the suite that allow you to send out tweets

directly to your target market. By doing so, business’ are able to alert individuals who would

potentially be interested in that product or service and get them talking about it. Ultimately of

By using these tools, Twitter will push your account and tweets to other individuals who might

not necessarily follow you but show similar interests will receive your tweets upon their

timeline. This is an effective way to spread brand awareness.

Promoted Trends is the last tool Twitter offers as part of the Promoted Suite. Trends are

conversation topics that are “trending” either in a city, country, or globally. Individuals can set

up there promoted trends preferences to target certain audiences. Trends help businesses

accomplish three goals

1. Seed a conversation

2. Make a company announcement

3. kickoff an online or offline event

(Prodromou, 2013)

The new pricing system that Twitter has implemented has made this direction of internet

marketing a viable one. Back in 2013, Premium account users had to sign up with Twitter for a

bare minimum 3­month campaign which included Promoted Tweets, Trends, and an Account at

15, 000 dollars (Paradisio 2013). For most entrepreneurs and small business owner’s, this is

simply just too much. Twitter redesigned their pricing scheme and allows account holders to set

a budget of how much they would like to spend and are placed in an bidding space for premium

Twitter space (Twitter 2015). To make it more appealing to individuals just entering the online

marketspace is that you will never have to pay more than the next competitive bid for the space.

15

So how can entrepreneurs feel confident that Twitter will actually help their business move

forward? Absolute Radio (http://absoluteradio.co.uk/music/) is a radio station from the UK that

wanted to find a new way to “keep listeners engaged in real time and rise above the clutter to

build reach” (Twitter Biz 2015) during an ad campaign by the name of “Faces of Radio”. To do

this, Absolute encouraged users to join them on Twitter tweeting out to @AbsoluteRadio what

songs were playing. Furthermore, Absolute also purchased a promoted trend “#nowplaying”.

With a small cash prize incentive as a bonus, Absolute Radio saw remarkable results. During the

day, Absolute radio saw a spike of 76,000 mentions, reaching out to potentially 23 million

viewers. Twitter also claimed that there were 10,000 tweets sent out that day alone with the

hashtag “#nowplaying”. The campaign also gained a 7 percent in online listenership. Twitter has

a page where prospective clients can learn more about the service at

https://biz.twitter.com/success­stories.

LinkedIn

The third social network that entrepreneurs and small business owners must be a part of

to be competitive in the online market is LinkedIn. LinkedIn is a professional social network for

individuals to present their current position and past accomplishments. LinkedIn has become a

source for those seeking work or those looking for someone to fill a position. LinkedIn was

originally launched in 2003, and now possesses 15.1 percent of the social media market share to

date (IBIS WORLD 2015). the database currently has 347 million active users in over 200

countries. LinkedIn does not provide its opportunity to its users necessarily by advertisements

such as its counterparts Twitter and Facebook, but rather its talent solutions. Talent Solutions

include corporate solutions, LinkedIn job postings and subscriptions for individuals. LinkedIn

16

corporate solutions includes LinkedIn recruiter, which enables enterprises and professional

organizations to find, contact and hire passive and active candidates. (IBIS World 2015) So what

makes the such as useful tool for entrepreneurs? While admist their rise to success, LinkedIn has

acquired some organizations that has added to their business model and has given them some

advantageous abilities over overs. Last year, in 2014, LinkedIn acquired a business by the name

of Bright. Bright is an organization that holds an online job board and works with business to

connect potential job candidates with the right business’. Previously, LinkedIn has previously

purchased news feed Pulse, which had been the current lead in content and news distribution and

SlideShare, a provider of a professional and educational content platform (IBIS WORLD 2015).

By making these acquisitions, LinkedIn has acquired the knowledge to better connect

prospective job candidates with employers (B2C and B2B), as well as gained systems and plans

to distribute its information, and a platform to present it on. LinkedIn has successfully presented

a platform for entrepreneurs to sell themselves professionally and effectively.

Google Adwords How companies use Adwords

Stop for a moment to think about your personal purchasing behavior or procurement

funnel. For many, if not most, people today, the purchasing funnel starts with need recognition

and then swiftly moves into an online search for different products that can fill this need. This is

where the power of advertising with Google really shines.

Take, for example, our friend Jim, who loves skiing, but has been working long hours

leaving him no time to plan, much less go on, a much needed ski trip. Throughout the week Jim

17

has been dreaming of his ski getaway and in his free moments, has been searching for different

ski locations. He was pleasantly surprised when he did a Google search for “Best East coast

skiing” and the first result was an ad that said “Mont Tremblant ski vacations ­ 30 cm fresh

powder. Stay 3 nights and get a day pass free”. This result, along with the two other results under

it, were ads placed by a marketer to connect with specific customers who were looking for their

specific product. But this isn't the end to Jim's story. He couldn't book his trip right then. He was

already late for a meeting and had to get off the computer. Life got busy and by Thursday Jim

still had not booked his trip. He went on his favorite ski blog and noticed an Ad from the very

same Mont Tremblant hotel where he had considered staying earlier in the week. As a result of

this follow­up or reminder ad, Jim ended up booking the hotel and enjoyed the best ski vacation

in a long time.

The hotel ad showing up on Jim's favorite blog was no coincidence. A savvy marketer

was using a function of Adwords. The ad was a remarket to visitors of their website who had not

made a purchase. This is one of the great opportunities marketers have to use Adwords to

connect with customers through the purchasing funnel. Some other great and equally powerful

tools Adwords has to offer are; mobile search ads, in app ads, Google map ads* YouTube ads,

search partner ads and display network ads.

Overview

To maximize your companies marketing outcomes by using Google Adwords there are

some things marketers should know. To make the advertising process seamless, it is useful to

understand key definitions, the different types of ads and how the Google Adwords bidding

process works.

18

Key definitions

keyword ­ Words that you set which are related to your products and that trigger ads

Ad position ­ Where your ad is shown

Impressions ­ The number of people who see your ad

Clicks ­ The number of people who click on your ad

Conversions ­ The number of people who make a purchase or perform an action you set

as a goal of your marketing.

Bounce ­ When someone clicks on your ad reaches your site and leaves before visiting

another page or converting.

Cost per click (CPC) ­ the amount you pay for a click. This is different from your max

bid.

Click through rate (CTR) ­ The number of clicks compared to the amount of times it's

seen (Clicks / Impressions)

Cost per conversion (CPA) ­ The cost per click / conversions

Types of ads

Search ads ­ The first three results of a search request and any results to the side of the

organic results. You can tell if a result is an ad by the yellow “Ad” badge beside the

result.

19

Search partner ads ­ Similar to Search ads but displayed on other search engines like

AOL.

Display ads ­ Ads placed on websites that use Google's adsense platform to advertise.

Box ­ Square ads usually found to the side of web pages

Banner ­ Rectangle ads usually found on the top of web pages

Rich media ­ Animated box or banner ads.

Video ads ­ Ads on the Youtube platform.

Shopping ads ­ Ads using the Google shop platform to sell products.

Mobile ads ­ Ads in apps or directed towards searches performed on a mobile phone.

To begin, we will discuss how to get the coveted first search ad position. You're probably

thinking, “that’s obvious ­ you just have to pay more”. Lucky for cash strapped entrepreneurs,

that’s not true. A unique feature of Google ads is the bid auction. When an ad is viewed by a

search involving a predetermined keyword, an auction is initiated. The auction is based on 3

main factors; bid amount, quality score and ad extensions.

Ad extensions are aspects of your ad that a marketer has to add in such as additional links

to different parts of your website, a linked phone number to call or a map.

The quality score is where the marketer can get the best bang for a buck when search

advertising with Google Adwords. The quality score of an advertisement is based on different

aspects of the ad on Google as well as the website. When determining the quality score the

relevance of keywords plays a large role. More relevant key words result in a higher score. This

is one of the reasons why making specific ads is important. To determine the quality score of an

20

ad, Google also looks at the number of impressions, click through rate and conversions related to

that specific ad. When determining the quality score related to a particular web site Google looks

at the relevance of the landing page to the ad. Having a highly relevant landing page will not

only allow for a better quality score it will also help achieve the goal of making a sale.

The final aspect of the ad auction is biding/ paying for an ad. First, the marketer has to

make an ad bid, or state the maximum price he/she is willing to pay per click, for example, $3.50

per click. Once the search has taken place, and the auction has been run and the ad has been

viewed, the only marketer who pays Google is the marketer who's ad received the click. The

other ads are not charged for being offered. Price is then determined. If the max bid was $3.50

and the competitors max bid was $3.00, the advertiser only has to pay enough to beat their

competitor, NOT the full bid amount. In this case, the advertiser would only have to pay $3.01.

For more information on the bidding process, watch this video by Google goo.gl/utWEOu (full

link in bibliography). It is very important to understand the auction process when advertising on

the search network.

When there are two different placement options with different average clicks, the

process diverges. If advertising on a site where there are two different ad positions, one will have

incrementally more clicks. For demonstration purposes, lets say your ad in position 1, has 10

clicks. Your competitor’s ad in position 2, has 8 clicks. Ad 1 wins the position given that it has

generated more clicks (10). Similarly to what happens in the search auction process, Advertiser 1

only pays enough to beat the bid by his competitor ($3.01), however, for the two incremental

clicks from the position with 8 clicks to the position with 10 clicks Advertiser #1 only has to pay

21

as much as the bid offered by the advertiser #2 ($3.00). Keep this in mind when looking at your

cost per click (CPC) when advertising on Google display networks.

Strategies

Depending on what your goal as a marketer is, there are different strategies that can be

put into play to increase the success of your campaign. Marketing directly to mobile devices,

targeting specific locations and remarketing past visitors are all different strategies that can be

implemented using Google adwords.

One of the most disruptive marketing strategies entrepreneurs can use is marketing

directly to mobile devices. Recent data shows that 85% of people believe that their phone is an

essential part of everyday life (Sales force, 2014) and that’s not going to decrease anytime soon.

People love the convenience of their phones and are constantly using them to find stores,

compare products and make purchases while on the go. Ninety percent of shoppers use their

phone for pre shopping activities (Marc Research, 2013) whether that is finding a location or

looking from promotional offers. This creates an opportunity where marketers can really drive

sales. To drive sales it is recommended that businesses create mobile only ads with promotions

tied to location. This will help to drive people to your business instead of going to Amazon and

making an online purchase.

One of the benefits of online marketing is it’s worldwide reach. This wide reach can

create opportunities but if your business is in Toronto you may not want to pay to have someone

in Paris, France click on your ad. A useful marketing feature of Google Adwords is that it can be

designed to target specific geographic locations. These locations can be as specific as a physical

location such as a university campus or an airport. For example, a business that sells workout

22

supplements targeted towards people on the go could display ads to people in select airports.

This would have the same effect as selling a product in airports but it would be much less

expensive as there would be no middleman. This structure also allows for better follow up ads

and allows companies to continue to target for follow up.

Remarketing is another great tool to increase conversion from customer interest to

customer. Some marketers have reported to have a 300% ­ 400% increase in conversion rates

using remarketing (Kayden Kelly, 2014). Using remarketing is an easy way to spend more

efficiently and to create more loyal customers. A great example of the possibilities of using

remarketing is Clarks Shoes. In the U.K., Clark Shoes was able to increase their conversion rate

seven fold and for every pound spent, they generated six pounds in revenue (Thinking with

Google, 2014). When remarketing, it is important to be cautious to not over market. Over

marketing can be seen as creepy and you will end up paying to damage your brand. It is

important to set limits when utilizing this tool.

Best Practices

Google Adwords is an incredibly powerful and useful tool if managed properly. If not

properly managed, it can be completely ineffective and a waste of money. There are several easy

steps that when done properly will insure a successful online campaign. This includes how to

properly structure your account, testing and tweaking.

Account and ad structure are two easy ways to improve your results using Google

Adwords. By structuring your account properly you will be able to increase your quality score by

creating specific ad groups. An account should be structured by specific campaigns being

separated with different ad groups for specific products. For example a sporting goods store

23

should have a campaign for skis and bikes. In the skis campaign ad groups should be created for

men’s and women’s skis. Ads for each ski manufacturer should be created in the appropriate ad

group.

Testing these ads is also an important part in increasing the effectiveness of your

campaigns. Testing ads is quite simple. Create two ads with different wording but with the same

keywords, make sure that they are set to rotate evenly and wait until you have generated enough

traffic to determine which ad is resulting in a higher conversion rate. Delete the other ad so that

they are not competing against each other in auctions and continue to run the more successful ad.

Once a successful ad has been created do not neglect it.

Ads can almost always be improved upon, which is why tweaking is a key element of

being successful on Google Adwords. As a marketing campaign gains more traffic and the

marketer develops a better understanding about visitor’s behavior, interests and motivations, ads

can be tweaked or tailored to connect with these motivations. Online marketing, especially

Adwords, is easy to track, so make sure to keep an eye out on the successfulness of each ad over

time.

Bing Ads Bing ads are the Yahoo equivalent of Google's Adwords and there are some benefits to

using Bing ads. Bing and Yahoo account for 8.66% percent of total web searches in January of

2015 (Statista, 2015)which may sound low but represents an incredible volume of searches.

Advertising on Bing is also less expensive than Google. In a study done by Cardinal Path the

cost per click was 40 cents less expensive on Bing compared to Google and resulted in a 2,426%

differences in ROI (Cardinal Path, 2014). Like Google, Bing has many of the same abilities

24

when it comes to targeting consumers. The interfaces are also very similar. Ads are triggered by

keywords that lead to a similar type of auction as that run by google. One of the benefits of using

Bing is the partner sites that you can advertise on. These include Facebook, Amazon, WebMD,

Monster and CNBC. These partner sites can be useful when targeting specific audiences,

especially if your product is related to health care.

Search Engine Optimization What it is

Entrepreneurs may not always be able to afford to pay to drive visitors to a website, or

may not want to spend their budget on that channel. It is however very important for your site to

be visible on the first page when a consumer does a web search relating to your product. There

are ways to do this without paying and its called search engine optimization (SEO). Regardless

whether marketers use PPC advertising or not all, web pages should be optimized for search

engines. There are several steps that entrepreneurs can take to improve their sites organic results,

some as easy as ensuring that the ULR code is structured properly. Google has created a tool

called Google Webmaster to assist marketers and entrepreneurs in doing this and there are many

other tools that can help manage SEO.

Advantages of SEO

The biggest advantage of SEO is that it is free. To a cash strapped entrepreneur this is

great, and consumers may see the results as being more authentic than professional marketing

ads. There is, however, a few downsides. Does the entrepreneur have the bandwidth and

capacity to use this tool to it’s maximum efficiency and effectiveness? It may take a lot longer to

see the results because of how specific searches have to be compared to PPC. The algorithms

25

that “crawl” the web when a search is performed also change semi­frequently and this can result

in changes in your placement. To decide what strategy is the best there are several factors that

should be taken into consideration. First of all, what's the advertising budget and what is the

value of a conversion? The higher the value of a conversion, the more management should be

willing to spend on keyword bids. That leads into the second factor to take into consideration.

How expensive are the keywords to be bid on? Some can be much more expensive than others,

for example the keyword “ice cream” costs about $2.43 compared to “PPC marketing” which

would cost $16.55. Depending on the industry, SEO may be a better choice. On Google

Adwords there are tools to help determine the cost for a keyword. Make sure to take these factors

into consideration when creating an online search strategy.

Tools to succeed

Some tooldss you can use to increase your results

www.semrush.com ­ Semrush is a powerful research tool allowing for insight into

competitors keywords, ad strategies and budget.

localvox.com ­ This one of the best tools for small business targeting local consumers

with SEO. localvox acts a one stop shop to manage an online presence providing insight,

the ability to publish to your website, post on social media and send out emails to lists.

moz.com ­ Moz allows for real time insight into everything you need to know to improve

your sites SEO performance. With tools to do crawler tests, assess keyword

competitiveness, find referrals for your brand on other sites and an on page keyword

grader this is a must have for advanced SEO marketers. They also have free tools like a

Google rankings “weather report” to show your day­to­day organic placement.

26

www.klipfolio.com ­ A great way to visualize your data and to share it within your

business through easy to understand dashboards. It also allows for greater freedom to

create your own insight using a formula builder similar to excel.

raventools.com ­ Raven is a great tool if you have several social media marketers on your

team. Each marketer success can be tracked individually. Raven also has tools to do site

audits, keep track of Key opinion leaders, measure what type of content is most popular,

increase ppc spending efficiency and quickly create viewer friendly reports.

traffictravis.com ­ FREE. If you cannot afford the other tools recommended, use Travis

tools. It provides the same insight as several of the other platforms but it is offline and

data hast to be fed into it for it to work.

Google Analytics

Google Analytics is a tool every online marketer and entrepreneur should use. Google

provides Analytics free of charge and it is a useful starting point to develop online insight. You

can learn valuable information by just using Google Analytics but to fully harness the potential

of an online presence, it is recommended to use Google Analytics in addition to some of the

other tools mentioned above. The tools that are provided are information on key events

(intelligent events), real time visitors, audience, acquisition, user behavior and conversions.

Similar to some of the other tools in analytics, marketers can create easy to read dashboards with

the information and insight that is most valuable for their business. The main drawback of

Google analytics is that it does not provide insight into competitors.

27

Value to Entrepreneurs

Entrepreneurs are not all techies, but most understand the value of insight into their

online presence. With Google Analytics entrepreneurs can get that insight for free. Email reports

can be set up weekly, daily or monthly so that decision makers can be kept in the loop. This

makes it very easy to monitor results and make the necessary adjustments without the hassle of

having to sort through thousands of data points. There are however some key performance

indicators that Google does not calculate but are very easy to calculate.

In Google Analytics, entrepreneurs can easily measure and monitor many different

factors about their customers. How customers are arriving at the website, their geographical

location and the content they are viewing is all important information when making decisions on

where to invest the marketing budget. If a company is investing in an online marketing

campaign to increase visibility on social media, the source of the site referrals an important piece

of insight. With this knowledge, marketing efforts can be focused on the most successful site(s),

generating the highest return on marketing investment. The location of visitors is also valuable

information that is provided. If a company decides to do traditional marketing or create online

targeting strategies, knowing visitor location will allow for more specific locations to target.

Another key piece of insight is the most popular content. Obviously, the ability to identify the

most popular content allows management to make many critical business decisions. Not only

will less marketing be needed to bring customers to a website, product development can be

tailored to meet customer interest.

28

Key performance indicators (KPI)

Measuring the right data for a company is very important. A university may have one

website but many different types of users; students, staff, alumni and potential students.

Measuring a conversion rate is difficult and may not be a good representation of whether

business goals are being met. More accurate key performance indicators for university

website could be time spent on page, number of page visits or page flow. Every business

should have specific indicators for what they are trying to accomplish and the value which is

associated with that.

Some useful KPI’s to keep an eye on

Average revenue per visit ­ Online revenue/ sessions

Average cost per conversion ­ Online marketing investment / number of conversions

Ration of new to returning visitors ­ New visitors / Sessions

Landing page stickiness (bounce rate) ­ Made by Google

Keyword goal compilation ­ Made by Google

Conclusion

Entrepreneurs are people who have the ability to identify needs that are unmet in the

current market. They are usually innovative in their business techniques and early adopters to

new trends and technology. Online marketing is no longer a trend but an essential part of the

marketing mix. It can also become a core competency with the right strategy and execution. A

well designed website will encourage visitors to make conversion. Social media creates strong

meaningful bonds between companies and people. Search engine optimization and pay per click

29

marketing drive website visits from qualified customers. With google analytics all of these

factors which play into maintain an online presence can be monitored. With all of these tools

entrepreneurs can create a successful online presence.

30

Bibliography

Ad words auction video ­ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjOHTFRaBWA Park, T., & Salvendy, G. (2012). Emotional Factors in Advertising Via Mobile Phones.

International Journal Of Human­Computer Interaction, 28(9), 597­612.

doi:10.1080/10447318.2011.641899

2014 mobile behavior report [PDF]. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.exacttarget.com/sites/

exacttarget/files/deliverables/etmc­2014mobilebehaviorreport.pdf

Google Analytics Remarketing Boosts Conversion. (2013, April 01). Retrieved April 08, 2015,

from http://www.blastam.com/blog/index.php/2013/04/google­remarketing­boosts­conversion

Clarks Makes Big Strides With Remarketing Lists for Search Ads. (n.d.). Retrieved April 08,

2015, from

https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/intl/en­gb/case­study/clarks­remarketing­lists­search­ads/

Panda, T. K. (2013). Search Engine Marketing: Does the Knowledge Discovery Process Help

Online Retailers?. IUP Journal Of Knowledge Management,11(3), 56­66.

Minton, E., Lee, C., Orth, U., Kim, C., & Kahle, L. (2012). SUSTAINABLE MARKETING AND

SOCIAL MEDIA. Journal Of Advertising, 41(4), 69­84. doi:10.2753/JOA0091­3367410405

31

Shreves, R. (2012). Drupal Search Engine Optimization : Drive People to Your Site with This

Supercharged Guide to Drupal SEO. Birmingham: Packt Pub.

Sweeney, S. (2008). 101 Ways to Promote Your Web Site. Gulf Breeze, FL: Independent

Publishers Group.

Atkinson, Geoffrey, Carl Driesener, and David Corkindale. "Search Engine Advertisement

Design Effects on Click­Through Rates."Journal of Interactive Advertising (2014):

140326092151001. Print.

The 2014 digital year in review & predictions for the year ahead [PDF]. (2014). Retrieved from

file:///Users/peterkotzeff/Downloads/comScore2015CanadaDigitalFutureinFocus_MAR2015.pdf

Mobile and the path to purchase [PDF]. (n.d.). Retrieved from

file:///Users/peterkotzeff/Downloads/ State_of_the_Mobile_Market_Final.pdf

Global market share of search engines 2015 | Statistic. (n.d.). Retrieved April 08, 2015, from

http://www.statista.com/statistics/216573/worldwide­market­share­of­search­engines/

Jerath, K., Ma, L., & Park, Y.­H. (2013). Marketing Science Institute Working Paper Series

2013: Consumer click behavior at a search engine: The role of keyword popularity (Report No.

32

13­106).Retrieved from http://cn.cnstudiodev.com/uploads/document_attachment/attachment/35

8/ msi_search_click_behavior.pdf

http://design4interaction.com/wp­content/uploads/2012/09/The_Big_Book_of_Key_Performanc

e_Indicators_by_Eric_Peterson.pdf

Arcade Brewery. (n.d.). Retrieved April 07, 2015, from

https://www.facebook.com/business/success/arcade­brewery

Download PDFs. (n.d.). Retrieved April 07, 2015, from

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0007681314000974

Pricing | Twitter for Business. (n.d.). Retrieved April 07, 2015, from

https://biz.twitter.com/products/pricing

Moule, J. (2012). Killer UX Design. Collingwood, Vic: SitePoint.

Ash, T., & Page, R. (2012). Landing page optimization the definitive guide to testing and tuning

for conversions, second edition (2nd ed.). Indianapolis, Ind.: John Wiley & Sons.

Delman, S. (2011). Say it with video. Communications of the ACM, 10­10.

Frederick, D.,Moehler, J., Vorvoreanu, I., & Glotzbach, R. (2015). The Effects of Parallax

Scrolling in User Experience in Web Design. Journal of Usable Studies, 10(2).

33

Kahn, S. (2015). Social Networking Sites in the US. Retrieved February 1, 2015, from http://clients1.ibisworld.com/reports/us/industry/default.aspx?entid=4574

34