Technology 4 StartUp Britain Week: Attracting Customers With SEO and PPC

When you are managing your own business there are many things to think of. Getting the right technology in place may not be the first thing you think off but doing so could save you time, money and help you find customers. We were at opening of ‘Technology 4 StartUp Britain Week’ to give you a live report of all the sessions via our @adCenter Twitter handle (#tech4sub) and to share the advertising tips with you here.

James Akrigg, Head of Technology at Microsoft UK gave an overview of past and future technology trends. Although he touched on many interesting topics such as for example, Windows Phone, the real eye opener in my opinion was an example on how surgeons use Kinect technology in hospitals. The software allows doctors to view patient information in the operating theater without having to touch the computer. Although most of us won’t be operating on anyone anytime soon - it does demonstrate that software could be solving a business challenge in a way you may not have yet thought of. Have a peak at our cloud services blog post for some details on technology that may help solve your business challenges.

Attracting Customers Online

One presentation close to my heart was all about gaining web presence and optimizing your search marketing strategy. This is a piece of cake to some but a bit of an unfamiliar science to others so Aaron McGrath (UK SMB Segment Lead) had some tips on how to get found online by optimising for SEO and PPC. If you like to know more about the difference between SEO and PPC have a read here.

How do you get found online? – Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

Crawlability – Ensure your site is easy to navigate and keyword rich and avoid ‘hiding’ this content in rich media as search engines will have a hard job finding it.
Site Structure - Provide a site structure that with strong functionality which helps and encourages link building. Linking to both trusted outside sources and internal content shows you care about users getting the best data around their query. Good site maps are user friendly and help search engines find all your content.
On page factors and site production - Follow a few simple guidelines for the area inside the code of your webpage denoted by the <head> tag. Each <title> should be short, about 65 characters, and unique to the page. Include the keyword you’re targeting for that page near the beginning of the title. The <meta description> tag can be longer and should also contain the keyword or phrase you’re targeting. All content should be unique to every page and be based on keyword research.
Link building - When you build links, insert targeted keywords in the anchor text to boost relevancy for the targeted search term, encourage links to your page by integrating social network icons & provide excellent, unique content. Build your audience and engage with them.
Write website landing pages for SEO, readability and ad quality

How do you get found online? – Pay Per Click (PPC)

So now you have all this free interest – why would you pay for clicks? Well around 80% of the clicks come from the top three search results Aaron points out- so it’s worth paying attention to PPC too. Small advertisers have plenty of targeting options in adCenter too (which you use to set up your campaigns for Bing) to help making it even more cost effective.

Keywords and match types - Build out keyword lists with Microsoft Advertising Intelligence, and use negative keywords based on search query reports to minimize the number of times your ad shows up in unrelated searches. Review your keyword Quality Scores and follow the suggested steps in adCenter to improve low-rated keywords. If you’re getting traffic but not enough conversions, consider using exact match. To boost traffic, try phrase or broad match types
Ad Copy - Consider using dynamic text to customize your ad titles and text to include the specific keywords searched by your customers. Use a call to action, such as acting on a discount available for a limited time, to give customers a reason to click your ad.
Budget - Your budget determines whether your shop is open or closed for online business. You can choose a daily or monthly budget option. Be sure you’re capturing your share of impressions and clicks by using the ‘Budget Suggestions’ feature. Make sure your budget is aligned to the shopping habits of your key customer base.
Bidding - The Top 3 positions will drive 80% of clicks. You want your ad to have a better position to give you a better chance of attracting the attention of your target customers.
Targeting - Use targeting to reach a more relevant audience and help improve your chances for conversions. You can target customers by location, age and gender, device used for the search, or by the time of day and day of week.

On Monday I spoke to many different people that had started their own business: a social media strategist, a career adviser, someone selling healthy snacks and a person helping school leavers bridge the gap between study and the working world. For all businesses there are technologies almost to measure to make work more efficient, to connect employees, to save time or to find new customers. Some are listed on the Microsoft Small Business Page. We also created an overview of marketing opportunities and free training on the Microsoft Advertising Small & Medium Business Site

If you are new to Bing & adCenter and would like to give it a go you can sign up here and get your first £30 worth of clicks free. And if you have any questions, feel free to tweet us anytime @adCenter!

Simone Schuurer – EMEA Community Site Manager

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Technology 4 StartUp Britain Week: Attracting Customers With SEO and PPC