Third Marble Marketing - Google Ads & SEO Tips, Tricks and Case Studies

The Small Business Guide to Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) in 2026

Mon, 20 Apr 2026 14:56:07 GMT

What are the Requirements for AI Search Visibility (GEO)?

To rank in AI-generated search results, a website requires three core components: high-authority backlinks (Domain Authority 30+), question-based content that provides a direct answer within the first 50 words, and technical schema markup that defines the site’s "entity" to search bots.

Core Requirements for AI Visibility

AI models prioritize data that is easy to categorize. To win the "Featured Snippet" or be the cited source in an AI answer, your site must provide:

High-DA Backlinks: These establish the "Trust Factor." AI models use these links as a digital vouch to ensure your information is accurate.
Question & Answer-Style Content: This provides the literal text the AI pulls for its response. This content must be clear, objective, and placed at the top of the page.
Technical Schema Markup: This is the "map" for bots. It tells the AI exactly who you are, what services you provide, and your physical service area.
Optimized Site Speed: AI crawlers prioritize sites that load quickly and are easy to index without technical errors.

Why is "Traditional" SEO No Longer Enough?

Old SEO was built for keywords, while AI SEO (also known as Generative Engine Optimization) is built for intent.

What's the Real Cost of Content and Authority?

The transition from our Basic to our Enhanced and Premium packages is driven by the specific "fuel" required for AI results. AI search models are sophisticated enough to ignore "fluff." To rank, you need:

Expert-Level Writing: Our higher tiers cover the cost of professional writers who create 1,000+ word "Definitive Guides" that AI models prefer to quote.
Premium Link Acquisition: Moving into the Enhanced or Premium tiers allows us to secure backlinks from higher-authority domains. These links are more expensive to acquire but are the only way to build the level of "trust" AI requires.

Comparing Third Marble SEO/AI Packages

We’ve structured our packages to scale with the level of AI competition in your industry:

Basic SEO Package ($499/mo)

AI Visibility: Minimal.
Focus: Fundamental on-page SEO and low-authority backlinks.
Best For: Low-competition niches where AI search isn't yet dominant.

Enhanced SEO/AI Package ($1,299/mo)

AI Visibility: Medium.
Focus: Quarterly professional content development and medium-authority backlinks.
Best For: Moderate competition (20-100 competitors) looking to start appearing in AI answers.

Premium SEO/AI Package ($3,499/mo)

AI Visibility: High.
Focus: Monthly professional content, high-authority backlink mix, and monthly expert strategy sessions.
Best For: High-stakes industries (50+ competitors) where being the "Top AI Result" is a primary business goal.

Frequently Asked Questions about AI Search

Why did the price of SEO increase for AI?

The "fuel" for AI visibility (high-quality content and high-authority links) is significantly more expensive to produce and acquire than the keyword-stuffing techniques of the past.

What are the main factors in pricing for the AI-focused packages?

Pricing is primarily driven by the inclusion of professional content writing and the premium cost of securing backlinks on high-authority websites. These two factors ensure higher quality and better search visibility for the Enhanced and Premium tiers.

How long does it take to show up in AI results?

Most businesses see a shift in AI citations within 3 to 6 months of implementing technical schema and high-authority content.

Does Google Ads help with AI results?

While Ads don't change your organic AI ranking, they provide immediate visibility while your long-term AI authority is being established.

Ready to Secure Your AI Ranking?

AI search is shifting from "maybe one day" to "right now." If your website isn't providing the direct answers and high-authority signals these models require, your competitors will be the ones getting the citations.

Don't leave your digital visibility to chance. Our team is ready to audit your current AI footprint and build a strategy that puts your business at the top of the results. Schedule a call with us today!

Poor Conversion Tracking Is Increasing Your Google Ads Cost

Fri, 17 Apr 2026 17:32:49 GMT

Why do your Google Ads Costs Increase When you don’t Track Valuable Conversions?

Google Ads charges a higher Cost-Per-Click (CPC) to accounts without conversion tracking because the algorithm views them as low-quality destinations. Without conversion signals, your Quality Score drops, triggering an "Invisible Tax" where you pay up to 40-80% more than competitors for the same keyword traffic.

What are the Core Requirements for Reducing CPC via Tracking?

To avoid the "Invisible Tax" and optimize for AI-driven bidding, your account must meet these technical and strategic benchmarks:

Conversion Signal Integration: You must deploy GTAG.js or Google Tag Manager (GTM) to track high-intent actions such as phone calls, form fills, and live chats.
Quality Score Optimization: Google uses a scale of 1-10 to determine your ad rank. Accounts with verified conversions see higher Landing Page Experience scores, which lowers the required bid to reach the top of the page.
Smart Bidding Activation: Accessing automated strategies like Target CPA (Cost-Per-Acquisition) or Maximize Conversions requires a minimum of 15-30 conversions over 30 days to provide the AI with sufficient data.
Negative Keyword Scrubbing: Without tracking, businesses often waste $500+ per month on "vanity keywords" that drive clicks but zero revenue. Tracking allows for the immediate pruning of these non-performing assets.
Schema Markup: Implementing Organization and LocalBusiness Schema helps Google’s crawlers verify the legitimacy of your "destination," further boosting your authority.

FAQ: People Also Ask

Does conversion tracking affect my organic SEO?

While not a direct ranking factor for organic search, the technical improvements required for tracking (such as faster page speeds and proper Schema implementation) contribute to a higher Domain Authority (DA) and better overall site health.

What is the "Invisible Tax" in Google Ads?

The "Invisible Tax" refers to the premium price Google charges advertisers who fail to prove their ads are useful. If the algorithm sees 100 clicks and zero conversions, it treats your site as a "bad destination" and increases your CPC to protect the user experience.

Can I use Smart Bidding without conversion data?

No. Smart Bidding relies on Machine Learning Entities to predict which users are likely to convert. Without conversion data, the AI has no "success" metric to optimize for, forcing the account to remain in expensive, manual bidding modes.

How Can You Maintain AI Visibility While Lowering Your Lead Costs?

Maintaining the technical requirements for AI visibility and low-cost lead generation requires constant monitoring. Our Enhanced SEO and Premium SEO/AI Packages are designed to handle these complex integrations, ensuring your conversion tracking is flawless and your "Invisible Tax" is eliminated. For current Third Marble clients, our Landing Page Service can fix conversion tracking and Quality Score issues to slash your average cost per click and maximize your results.

Ready to turn your Google Ads into a precision-tuned machine? Schedule a call with us today!

Case Study: Breaking the "100-Sale" Ceiling for a Medical Supply Retailer

Tue, 17 Mar 2026 17:08:12 GMT

Prior to June, a retailer specializing in medical and firefighter equipment found their Google Ads performance had plateaued. The account's click-through rate (CTR) rarely moved above 1%, and monthly sales were trapped under a "glass ceiling". While they typically secured between 50 and 100 conversions each month, they were unable to consistently break into triple-digit territory.

The Fix:

Our team realized the "plumbing" was the real problem. In December, we did a deep dive to fix nagging issues with their conversion tracking and Google Merchant Center (GMC). Once those technical hurdles were cleared, we shifted the entire account over to Performance Max (PMAX). Further, we focused heavily on the “Firefighter Supplies” PMAX campaign and specifically targeted high-traffic states like California and New York.

The Results:

The turnaround was fast. By January 2026, the account's CTR jumped to 1.05%, which is a 42% improvement over the same time last year. More importantly, that 100-sale ceiling is gone. As a result, the company has been averaging 150 purchases a month for the last two months.

In January alone, they hit 163 conversions, which is a 75% increase compared to the year before. Even though they’ve upped their investment by 60% to keep up with the new demand, the efficiency is still there, bringing in about $3 for every $1 spent .

Think your Google Ads might have a "glass ceiling"?

All in all, this case study proves that you don't always need a massive budget increase to see a massive shift in results. By simply fixing technical errors and doubling down on high-performing strategies like PMAX, it’s possible to actually double your monthly sales volume.

If this situation resonates with your business, stop settling for a plateau and start scaling your leads. If you’re ready to scale your results, schedule a call with one of our Google Ads experts today to see how we can help you break through your own performance ceiling!

Third Marble Marketing Named a Top Google Ads Service by Visionary CIOs

Thu, 26 Feb 2026 19:59:07 GMT

We’re excited to announce that Third Marble Marketing and our founder, Chris Fawcett, are featured in the latest issue of Visionary CIOs magazine. The publication officially named us a "Top Google Ads Management Service for Small Businesses Seeking Growth." They also put Chris on the cover to talk about how we’re changing the game in digital advertising.

A Better Way to Help Small Businesses

The Visionary CIOs feature breaks down the "assembly line" approach we’ve used since 2009. Moreover, we’ve always believed that high-level digital strategy shouldn't be out of reach for small-to-medium enterprises. By applying lean process improvements to Google Ads and SEO, we’ve found a way to bridge the gap between expensive agency results and small business budgets.

This award reflects our focus on transparency. Many agencies rely on high overhead and restrictive contracts, but we’ve maintained a 95% client retention rate by focusing on data and results rather than long-term obligations.

Insights from the Feature

The article dives into Chris’s take on the current digital landscape. One point he often makes is that a website is basically a dormant asset if you don't have a strategy to drive traffic to it. He famously compares an unpromoted site to printing a stack of business cards but never actually handing them out to anyone.

This recognition also highlights how our internal systems allow us to offer expert Google Ads management at a price point that makes sense for smaller companies. At the end of the day, this award validates our goal, which is to help small businesses get their fair share of the digital marketplace through professional, disciplined ad management.

A Quick Thank You

While this is a big milestone for our leadership, it’s really a reflection of our team’s hard work and the trust our clients put in us every day. We’re staying focused on the professional service that earned this recognition in the first place.

We invite you to read the Full Feature in Visionary CIOs to see where we’re taking Google Ads management next.

Third Marble Marketing is a 2026 Google Premier Partner!

Thu, 26 Feb 2026 17:35:12 GMT

Third Marble Marketing Is Proud To Announce That We Are A 2026 Google Premier Partner!

What is a Google Premier Partner?

In February, Google recognized the achievements of top-performing digital marketing partners across the globe by awarding Premier Partner status as part of the Google Partners program . Third Marble Marketing has been awarded the distinction of being named a 2026 Premier Partner ! This exciting news means:

We are among the top 3% of Google Partners participants in the United States of America! This is a testament to not only our leading expertise in Google Ads, but also our ability to forge new client relationships and support our clients’ growth.
We are now listed on the Google Partners directory , which helps potential clients find top Premier Partners like Third Marble Marketing on our own dedicated page within the directory!
We receive exclusive benefits that we can pass down to our clients to promote client growth and success with Google Ads.

About The Google Partners Program

The Partners program is designed for advertising agencies and third parties that manage Google Ads accounts on behalf of other brands or businesses. Its mission is to empower companies by providing them with innovative tools, resources, and support to help their clients succeed and grow online.

About Third Marble Marketing

If you're looking to grow your business using Google, Third Marble Marketing is your one stop shop. Google Ads and SEO are all we do, so we've 100% optimized our services. Unlike your typical full-service agency where Google Ads and SEO is one of a dozen-- or more-- services they offer, here at Third Marble every single member of our staff is dedicated to improving your sales via Page One of Google. As a Google Premier Partner , we know the changes Google is going to make before everyone else. This allows us to stay on top of the latest algorithms and improve our processes constantly to get our clients the best possible Google results for the lowest possible price. That's what makes Third Marble different - our process-centered philosophy of constantly improving to deliver the best possible results, at the lowest prices . Contact us today to learn more!

Thank You!

We can't do any of this alone--none of this would be possible without our awesome team of experts or our wonderful community of clients. Thank you for putting your trust in us to take your business to the next level. The sky is the limit and we can't wait to see what 2026 will bring!

Case Study: How a Foundation Inspection Company Improved Google Ads Leads During a Website Redesign

Fri, 23 Jan 2026 18:55:45 GMT

Client Overview

In this case study, we highlight a company specializing in foundation and structural inspections, dedicated to giving homeowners confidence about the condition of their homes. Further, Google Ads played a central role in generating qualified inbound leads, helping the business connect with homeowners actively seeking expert inspection services.

The Challenge

The client already had Google Ads generating leads, but the website itself was minimal. For instance, the company’s services were not clearly organized, navigation was minimal, and there were few visual or trust-based elements to support paid traffic.

The goal of the project was to improve the website experience without disrupting existing Google Ads performance. Because paid traffic was already producing leads, a full redesign carried the risk of reduced conversions if not executed carefully.

The Solution

In February, ReDoSites (under Third Marble Marketing) launched a strategic website redesign focused on clarity, organization, and conversion support. Nathan Lee, ReDoSites Team Lead, stated, “I organized their services into a services tab on the navigation bar, which made the types of inspections much more obvious. I also added visual elements to clearly show what services were offered, along with a ‘Why Choose Us’ section and customer testimonials. The goal was to make the site clearer, more organized, and more visually engaging. The previous site was very bare bones. We also included pricing to help set expectations.”

Key Improvements

The site navigation was restructured to clearly group and display all inspection services under a dedicated ‘Services’ tab, making the full scope of offerings immediately obvious to visitors arriving from Google Ads. Visual elements were also introduced to reinforce service clarity and help users quickly understand the types of inspections available without relying solely on text. As a result, friction for first-time visitors was reduced, allowing for faster and more intuitive decision-making.

To further support conversions, trust and credibility were strengthened through the addition of a ‘Why Choose Us’ section and customer testimonials. Pricing information was also included to set expectations early and help qualify leads before initial contact. Overall, the redesign transformed a limited website into a structured, organized, and conversion-supportive experience designed specifically to complement paid traffic.

Results

Google Ads performance remained strong and consistent before and after the website launch, validating that the redesign supported conversions rather than disrupting them.

Before the Redesign

In the initial period, the campaign generated 2 conversions from 31 clicks, with a cost per conversion of $180 and total ad spend of $360.

30 Days After New Site Launch

In the first 30 days following the website launch, the campaign generated 6 conversions from 37 clicks. Cost per conversion dropped significantly to $53, with total ad spend of $319.

Most Recent 30 Days

In the most recent 30-day period, the campaign generated 5 conversions from 39 clicks. Cost per conversion remained low at $57, with total ad spend of $289.

While conversion volume increased after launch, the most important outcome was consistency. The new website not only preserved Google Ads performance but also improved efficiency, avoiding the drop in leads that often follows a redesign.

Why This Matters

Website redesigns frequently disrupt lead flow, especially for businesses that rely heavily on Google Ads. In this case, improved service clarity, stronger structure, and better trust signals allowed the client to maintain and improve performance.

This project demonstrates how intentional website design can protect existing paid traffic results while creating a stronger long-term foundation for growth.

Planning a website redesign but worried about losing leads?

Third Marble Marketing and ReDoSites help businesses improve their websites without hurting Google Ads performance.

If you have questions about our Internet Marketing Service , schedule a call today with a Google Ads expert to learn more about how it works!

Interactive Content for Higher Engagement

Fri, 16 Jan 2026 19:33:57 GMT

Standing out online is no longer just about publishing more content. It is about creating experiences that invite users to engage. Interactive content such as quizzes, polls, and infographics can turn passive visitors into active participants, helping businesses increase engagement, time spent on site, and most importantly, conversions.

What Is Interactive Content?

Interactive content is any type of content that requires user input to deliver value. Instead of simply reading and leaving, users click, answer, or explore. This small shift creates a more memorable experience and encourages users to stay connected with your brand longer.

How Quizzes Drive Engagement

Quizzes work because they feel personal. When users answer a few targeted questions and receive a customized result, the content feels relevant rather than generic. This makes quizzes effective for evaluating marketing readiness, identifying service needs, or highlighting opportunities for improvement.

Quizzes can also serve as lead generation tools. By delivering results via email, businesses gain valuable insight into their audience while providing clear and useful next steps.

Why Polls Encourage Participation

Polls remove friction from engagement. They are quick, simple, and easy to complete, making them ideal for blog posts, email campaigns, and social media platforms. Even a single click can create a sense of involvement and help users feel heard.

Beyond engagement, polls provide direct feedback that can help shape future content, services, and messaging strategies.

The Value of Interactive Infographics

Interactive infographics allow users to explore information at their own pace. Instead of presenting everything at once, content is revealed through clicks or scrolling. This approach makes complex topics easier to understand and keeps users engaged longer.

They are especially effective for explaining processes, comparing services, or breaking down data-heavy topics in a more digestible way.

Using Interactive Content in Marketing Campaigns

Interactive Content is most effective when it is part of a comprehensive marketing strategy. Embedding quizzes and polls into service pages can increase time on site, while interactive landing pages often perform better in paid campaigns. On social media, interactive formats help boost visibility and engagement without requiring additional content creation.

Why Interactive Content Works

Interactive content creates a two-way experience. Instead of talking at users, it invites them into a conversation. That participation builds trust, increases retention, and improves overall campaign performance.

Engagement That Drives Real Results

Interactive content is a powerful way to increase engagement without increasing content volume. By encouraging participation, businesses can create more meaningful connections with their audience and drive better results from their marketing efforts.

If you’re ready to refresh and improve your content strategy, our Internet Marketing Service helps create engaging experiences that turn attention into action. Contact us today to get started!

Local SEO That Works: Virginia Spa Sees Explosive Growth

Wed, 10 Dec 2025 16:35:02 GMT

A Virginia spa partnered with Third Marble Marketing to improve local visibility and attract more qualified clients. When they signed up for our Local SEO Services in September 2025, the spa had 20 online business listings and a limited presence in local search results.

Over three months, we focused on Google Business Profile optimization , high-domain authority backlinking , technical backend SEO improvements, and building citations . This included creating 141 backlinks and syndicating a press release across 258 online news outlets to enhance domain authority and AI visibility in overviews and mentions.

By December, results were measurable and significant:

Citations increased from 20 to 62
100% of the spa’s focus keywords were showing on page one of Google search
Organic website traffic grew 26%
Interactions per session increased 36%
Key service pages saw traffic gains from 32% to 133%
Overall revenue increased nearly 8%

The spa also secured the top spot on Google Maps for its primary service keywords, driving steady growth in calls, bookings, and new client visits. This demonstrates how targeted local SEO strategies and GBP optimization can quickly turn limited visibility into consistent demand.

Want results like these for your business?

Schedule a call with our team to discuss how our Internet Marketing Service can help you get found, get clicks, and get more customers.

Maximizing Local SEO for Multi-Location Businesses

Mon, 08 Dec 2025 14:32:52 GMT

Managing local search for multiple locations comes down to clarity, consistency, and giving Google reliable information for every place you operate. When each Google BusinessProfile (GBP) is complete and accurately reflects its location, your visibility strengthens across all markets.

Build Each Google Business Profile Properly

Every location needs its own fully built profile, including the correct business name, address, hours, services, photos, and a simple description of what that location offers. Treat each profile as its own storefront. For instance, someone landing on it should immediately understand who you are, what you do there, and when you’re open.

Use Location-Specific Landing Pages

It’s important to link each profile to a page dedicated to that physical office (not a general “locations” page or your home page). A real location page helps Google clearly connect the profile to the city, team, and service area it represents.

Create a Consistent Review Process

Request reviews for each individual location. If a business has many offices, but only one pool of general reviews, your business will look disconnected. Consequently, this is why having separate and authentic reviews tied to each address is imperative, as they help boost trust and the perception of real presence.

Keep Each Profile Active

Regular posts, updated photos, and occasional promotions signal that the profile is maintained. Additionally, try to spread updates out over time for steady activity rather than large batches all at once.

Ensure Local Citations Match

Your name, address, and phone number need to appear the same everywhere online. Consistency builds confidence with Google. Inconsistencies create doubt and weaken your visibility.

Publish Location-Focused Content

Create content that reflects the cities you serve (e.g., guides, service explanations, FAQs, or project examples tied to specific neighborhoods). Localized content increases relevance for people searching in that area.

What Not To Do: Avoid Fake or Unstaffed Locations

Do not create listings for places where you don’t actually operate. Virtual offices, co-working spaces, PO boxes, and similar setups will not hold up in the long term. Moreover, Google identifies them quickly, competitors report them, and the risk to your valid locations isn’t worth it. If you don’t serve customers at a real, staffed address, skip the listing and strengthen your location pages and service area content instead.

The Bottom Line

Multi-location businesses succeed in local search by treating every location as legitimate and distinct while keeping brand information consistent. Real locations, real pages, real reviews, and real activity build the signals Google rewards.

Need Support Managing Multiple Locations?

Our Internet Marketing Service specializes in local SEO and GBP optimization for businesses with multiple locations. We handle profiles, landing pages, and local content so every location performs at its best. Schedule a call with us today to get started!

Did You Overpay for Google Ads? Federal Rulings May Entitle Your Business to Compensation

Wed, 19 Nov 2025 18:20:16 GMT

Recent developments following federal court rulings suggest that many businesses that have purchased Google Ads may be eligible to recover a significant portion of their past advertising expenditures. Third Marble Marketing is bringing this information to your attention, as many of our clients fall into the potentially eligible category.

Here is a breakdown of what has happened and how it may affect your business.

The Google Ads Compensation Claim

Multiple courts have recently ruled that Google engaged in anti-competitive and unlawful behavior related to the operation of its search and display advertising platforms. Experts say this conduct essentially inflated the cost of Google Ads above what it should have been.

Consequently, the law firm Keller Postman, co-founded by Ashley Keller and Warren Postman, is launching a coordinated legal effort to help businesses like yours recoup these alleged overpayments.

Key Facts for Eligibility

If you’ve run Google Ads campaigns, here are the key details you need to know:

Who is Eligible? Any business, large or small, that purchased Google Search or Display ads on or after August 2016.
Potential Recovery: Companies that file a successful claim could recover up to 30% of their total Google Ads spend since August 2016.
Cost Structure: Keller Postman, the law firm handling these claims, works on a contingency basis. This means you pay absolutely nothing upfront, and they only get paid if they win compensation for you.

Act on Your Claim Today

This claim is about recovering money that should have been yours in the past. As always, we’re up to date on all things Google and are committed to sharing information relevant to your success, especially when it means there's a significant opportunity for you to recover funds!

Your most important step right now is immediate action, so please check your eligibility here .

How Third Marble Can Help

This situation demonstrates the value of having an expert partner manage your campaigns.

Since we already manage your Google Ads, we can easily provide your total historical spend to support a claim. Just email your Account Manager or our general support email to request this data.

Not a current client?

We'd be happy to discuss taking Google Ads management off your plate so you can focus on your business.

You can start by scheduling a call with us for a Free Google Ads Audit !

Please note: Third Marble Marketing is providing this information so you don't miss out on a potential financial recovery. We are not a law firm and are not providing legal advice. The compensation claim process is being managed entirely by the Keller Postman law firm. Please review their materials and direct any legal questions to them.

Is Your Competitor Using Google Posts? Why This Free Tool Matters Now

Fri, 14 Nov 2025 20:51:03 GMT

The successful management of local SEO requires consistent effort across all digital channels. While foundational elements, such as categorical optimization and review management, are critical, many local businesses overlook the high-impact, immediate potential of Google Posts within their Google Business Profile (GBP).

Google Posts transform a basic business listing into a dynamic asset, providing timely, relevant updates that appear prominently in Google Search and Maps results. This oversight represents a significant missed opportunity to generate qualified traffic and enhance customer engagement.

With our internet marketing service , we emphasize the strategic necessity of utilizing every tool provided. Moreover, this blog details how local businesses can effectively employ Google Posts to maximize profile visibility, highlight proprietary offers, and establish continuous relevance. These are simple methods to gain an advantage over your competition, so do not miss out!

1. Maximizing Conversion Potential with Explicit CTAs

The Google Post format is specifically designed to facilitate direct user action. Unlike static directory listings or standard social media feeds, every post features a mandatory Call-to-Action (CTA) button, which immediately channels user interest toward a desired conversion endpoint.

Strategic Linking: The efficacy of your CTA hinges on directing the user to the precise location. For example, a post announcing a new service must link directly to that service page, not the general homepage. Utilize targeted CTA options such as "Order Online," "Book Now," or "Sign Up."

Performance Insight: Clicks originating from Google Posts represent high-intent interactions. This elevated user activity reinforces the relevance of your website to Google's algorithms and effectively streamlines the customer journey from a search query to a completed action.

2. Strategic Utilization of Dedicated Post Types for Prominence

Google provides specialized Post formats (Offer and Event) engineered to confer immediate visibility and introduce a critical element of urgency into your marketing communications.

Promotional Clarity (Offers): The "Offer" type should be reserved for structured sales, coupons, or time-bound discounts. This format allows the inclusion of specific expiration dates, coupon codes and is visually distinguished by a "View Offer" badge on the profile, compelling immediate customer engagement.

Schedule Management (Events): Employ the "Event" type for planned occurrences such as extended holiday hours, workshops, or community functions. Events remain active until their conclusion, ensuring persistent visibility and allowing users to plan their attendance accordingly.

Operational Note: Given their typically short lifespan (often seven days), Google Posts must be reserved for communicating current, time-sensitive information, which necessitates consistent and proactive profile management.

3. Maintaining Profile Vitality and Algorithmic Relevance

Consistent content generation through Google Posts is essential for maintaining a robust and competitive Google Business Profile. Active and regular posting demonstrates operational reliability, a factor highly valued by both searchers and search engine algorithms.

Visual Integrity: Posts must always incorporate high-resolution images or video. Compelling media serves as the primary gateway for user engagement and maintains the freshness of your profile’s visual assets.
Keyword Reinforcement: The copy of your post offers valuable space to naturally integrate relevant keywords and localized geographical mentions that substantiate the primary services detailed on your profile. This directly strengthens your ranking signals within local search results.
Engagement Metrics: A consistently updated profile intrinsically attracts a higher volume of views, clicks, and inbound calls, thereby establishing a beneficial cycle of sustained local visibility and trust.

By implementing a disciplined strategy for the creation and deployment of focused Google Posts with clear CTAs, your organization can significantly amplify its local search visibility and secure measurable, high-value leads. This practice is an essential component of professional Local SEO management.

Elevate Your Local SEO Strategy

It's no secret that developing and maintaining consistent, high-impact content requires dedicated resources that may detract from your primary responsibilities as a business owner. If the continuous management of a strategic posting schedule presents a challenge, outsourcing this function is a prudent solution.

This is why our experienced team at Third Marble Marketing strives to deliver affordable, comprehensive Local SEO Services , ensuring your Google Business Profile remains optimally active and competitive.

Contact us today to Schedule An Expert Consultation and optimize your local SEO strategy!

From Selfies to Sales: How Customer Photos Elevate Your Google Visibility

Wed, 22 Oct 2025 15:11:51 GMT

When it comes to Google Business Profiles , most local businesses focus on reviews, hours, and keywords. However, there’s another ranking factor quietly influencing local SEO: customer-uploaded photos. These authentic, user-generated images can boost engagement, trust, and visibility all without costing you a dime.

Why Customer Photos Matter for Local SEO

Google’s algorithm measures how users interact with your profile. Profiles with frequent photo uploads—especially from customers—signal that the business is active, popular, and relevant. According to Google, listings with photos receive more clicks, requests for directions, and calls than those without. When customers upload photos, it adds credibility that business-posted images can’t fully match.

Each new photo also increases engagement opportunities. Users are more likely to explore your listing when they see real experiences rather than stock or promotional images. That engagement loop (e.g., clicks, zooms, shares, etc.) tells Google your business deserves higher visibility in local search results and Maps.

How to Encourage Customer Photo Uploads

Ask at the Right Time: Prompt happy customers to share photos right after a great experience. A simple “We’d love to see your photos on Google!” can go a long way.
Include It in Your Follow-Up Emails: Add a short line and link to your profile, encouraging customers to upload images with their review.
Incentivize Without Violating Policies: You can’t offer discounts for reviews, but you can spotlight customer photos on your social media or website to motivate participation.
Create Photo-Worthy Moments: Make sure your space, signage, and products are visually appealing and well-lit. Customers are more likely to post photos when there’s something worth capturing.
Engage with Uploaded Photos: Like and respond to reviews with photos, and share them (with credit) across your channels. Engagement encourages others to contribute!

The Bottom Line

Customer photos aren’t just nice additions. They’re engagement drivers that can improve your Google Business Profile’s visibility. By fostering authentic photo uploads, you’re helping Google (and potential customers) see your business as vibrant and trustworthy.

At Third Marble Marketing, we specialize in optimizing Google Business Profiles and other local SEO strategies to help businesses thrive. If you're ready to leverage customer photos and other proven tactics for better visibility with our Internet Marketing Service , contact us today for a free consultation. Let's transform your local presence into lasting success!

Local SEO Myths That Could Be Hurting Your Business

Fri, 10 Oct 2025 16:21:23 GMT

In the ever-evolving world of digital marketing, local SEO remains a cornerstone for businesses aiming to attract nearby customers. Whether you're a small coffee shop or a regional service provider, optimizing your online presence for local searches can drive foot traffic, boost leads, and increase revenue. However, misconceptions about local SEO persist, leading many business owners to make costly mistakes.

At Third Marble Marketing, we've seen firsthand how these myths can sabotage your efforts. In this post, we'll debunk three common local SEO myths: the supposed benefits of keyword stuffing, the underestimation of listing accuracy, and the belief that Google Ads directly influence organic rankings. Let's set the record straight and help you focus on strategies that actually work.

Myth 1: Keyword Stuffing Improves Your Local SEO Rankings

One of the oldest myths in SEO is that cramming as many keywords as possible into your content, Google Business Profile, or website will skyrocket your rankings. For local businesses, this might mean repeatedly stuffing terms like "best plumber in Richmond, VA" into every description, title, and meta tag. The reality? Keyword stuffing not only fails to help but actively harms your SEO performance.

Search engines like Google have sophisticated algorithms that prioritize user experience. Overusing keywords makes content read unnaturally, which can lead to penalties, lower rankings, or even removal from search results. Instead of stuffing, focus on natural keyword integration through high-quality, relevant content that answers user queries. For local SEO, incorporate location-based keywords thoughtfully in your Google Business Profile categories, service descriptions, and website pages. Tools like Google's Keyword Planner and Google Trends can help identify optimal terms without overdoing it.

By avoiding this myth, you'll create content that's engaging for humans and favorable for algorithms, leading to sustainable ranking improvements.

Myth 2: Listing Accuracy Isn't That Important for Local Visibility

Many business owners assume that as long as their business is listed somewhere online, the details don't need to be spot-on. A slight mismatch in address, phone number, or hours across directories like Yelp, Apple Maps, or Google? No big deal, right? Wrong! This misconception can severely damage your local SEO.

Accurate and consistent business listings (known as NAP—Name, Address, Phone) are crucial because search engines use them to verify your business's legitimacy and relevance. Inconsistencies confuse algorithms, leading to lower visibility in local search results and the dreaded "Map Pack." Moreover, inaccurate info frustrates potential customers, eroding trust and driving them to competitors. Studies show that even minor errors can result in lost revenue, as customers may assume your business is unreliable or closed.

To combat this, audit your listings regularly. Ensure every directory reflects the exact same details, and update them promptly for changes like new hours or relocations. Consistent accuracy not only boosts rankings but also enhances customer experience, turning searchers into loyal patrons.

Myth 3: Running Google Ads Will Boost Your Organic Search Rankings

It's a tempting belief: If you're spending money on Google Ads (formerly AdWords), surely that investment trickles down to improve your organic rankings, right? After all, more visibility means more clicks, which could signal quality to Google. Unfortunately, this is a myth, as Google Ads and organic SEO operate in separate silos.

Google has repeatedly confirmed that paid advertising does not directly influence organic search rankings. While Ads can drive immediate traffic and provide valuable data (like which keywords convert best), they don't give your site a ranking boost in unpaid results. Organic rankings depend on factors like content quality, backlinks, site speed, and user signals (not your ad budget).

That said, there's indirect synergy. Insights from Ads campaigns can inform your SEO strategy, such as optimizing landing pages for better performance in both channels. Use Ads to test keywords and refine your approach, but don't rely on them as a shortcut to organic success. A balanced strategy combining both can maximize your ROI without falling for this misconception.

Takeaway: Focus on Proven Local SEO Strategies

Dispelling these myths is the first step toward a stronger local SEO foundation. Keyword stuffing alienates users and search engines alike, inconsistent listings undermine trust and visibility, and expecting Google Ads to magically enhance organic rankings sets you up for disappointment. Instead, prioritize creating valuable content, maintaining accurate listings, and using data-driven tactics to grow your business.

At Third Marble Marketing, we specialize in cutting through the noise to deliver results-driven local SEO services . If you're prepared to dispel misconceptions and boost your digital visibility with premier Internet Marketing Service , reach out to us now for a complimentary consultation. Let's turn those local searches into real customers!

Harnessing User-Generated Content for Brand Growth

Fri, 12 Sep 2025 20:02:04 GMT

When it comes to marketing, people trust people. That’s why user-generated content (UGC) has become one of the most powerful tools for local businesses. Some examples of UGC include customer photos, reviews, and social media posts. Instead of polished ads, UGC provides an authentic glimpse into how real customers experience your brand. Remember, authenticity is the best way to build trust!

Why UGC Works

Customers are more likely to believe a neighbor’s review or a friend’s photo than a company’s ad. In fact, UGC acts like digital word-of-mouth, showing potential customers that your business delivers on its promises. This social proof increases credibility, boosts engagement, and often drives higher conversions.

Ways to Encourage UGC

Ask for Reviews: After completing a job, invite customers to leave a Google review. Make it simple by providing a direct link.
Create Shareable Moments: If you’re a restaurant, encourage diners to snap photos of their meals. If you’re a home service provider, take before-and-after shots and invite customers to share them.
Run Small Contests: Offer a discount or giveaway in exchange for tagging your business in a post.
Engage with Existing Content: If someone posts about your business, thank them and share it (with permission, of course). Recognition often leads to more sharing.

How to Leverage UGC

Feature it on your Website: Showcase customer testimonials or embed social media feeds.
Use it in Ads: A happy customer’s words or photo can outperform stock images every time.
Highlight it on Social Media: Share customer stories, posts, and reviews to show your community that you value their voice.
Build Local Trust: For small businesses, UGC demonstrates that your neighbors rely on you, which is powerful reassurance for new customers.

The Takeaway

User-generated content turns satisfied customers into brand ambassadors. By encouraging and amplifying UGC, local businesses can strengthen trust, spark engagement, and stand out in competitive markets.

Want to learn how to turn your customers into your best marketers? Reach out to Third Marble Marketing, and let’s create a strategy that grows your brand from the inside out.

Case Study: How Apex Family Chiropractic Boosted Leads by 457% with Third Marble Marketing

Thu, 11 Sep 2025 15:50:48 GMT

Apex Family Chiropractic Center partnered with Third Marble Marketing at the start of the year, just as Google Ads was rolling out new Performance Max updates. Our team is committed to staying ahead of these changes and has developed strategies to make Performance Max and Search campaigns work together to deliver stronger results for local businesses.

Search Campaign Launch

In the first month, we launched a Search campaign with carefully selected keywords and ad copy designed to attract qualified leads at an efficient cost per click. Before launching, Dr. Minesh Patel opted for a landing page conversion assessment through our Help Sessions , where we completed two landing page audits and suggested improvements, such as adding social proof, updating headlines, and refining content. He implemented those recommendations, and with the optimized landing pages in place, the campaigns got off to a strong start. The early success encouraged him to increase the budget to aim for even greater growth. This was also the second business Dr. Patel entrusted to Third Marble, further underscoring his confidence in our process.

Search Campaign Results

Our account management and optimization teams have consistently refined the campaign by testing keywords, updating ad copy, and fine-tuning targeting. After six months, this steady improvement drove a 243% increase in leads while cutting cost per lead by 62%. Dr. Patel shared, “Since starting with Third Marble, we have noticed a steady increase in our internet referral sources, but most importantly, the quality of the leads. Due to the quality of the leads, we have been able to convert a high number of patients onto appropriate treatment plans with high compliance.”

Performance Max Launch

Recognizing the potential of running Search and Performance Max together, we recommended adding a Performance Max campaign. The client agreed, allowing us to build a strategy that expanded reach across Google’s platforms at a lower overall cost per click.

Performance Max Results

Within just four months, the Performance Max campaign generated 36% more leads and reduced cost per lead by 26%. Like the Search campaign, it has been closely monitored to minimize low-quality traffic and block spam. This growth has had a direct impact on the practice. Dr. Patel explained, “As a healthcare practitioner, our main altruistic goal is to help as many people as possible. The increase in visibility allows us that privilege. With the increased visibility comes the ability to grow the business and provide more services, hire more staff with the added revenue.”

Combined Campaign Results

By running Performance Max alongside Search, the two campaigns complement each other. Performance Max captures lower-cost leads, while Search secures highly targeted, higher-value opportunities. Together, they have delivered a 46% drop in cost per click, a 457% increase in leads, and a 64% reduction in cost per lead.

Reflecting on the partnership, Dr. Patel noted, “As a past client for many years with another business that we grew to become the largest chiropractic providers in central Virginia, partnering with Third Marble again was never a question. If the recipe works, why change it? I was heartened to know that Chris was still at the helm, and as I would expect, Third Marble has added excellent staff members who are always available for questions, as well as experts in their field.”

Ready to see your leads grow like Apex Family Chiropractic Center? Partner with Third Marble Marketing today and let us optimize your Google Ads for maximum results. Schedule a call with us now to get started!

Google Ads in 2025: What Local Businesses Really Need to Know

alexh@thirdmarblemarketing.com (Alex Huibsch) — Mon, 16 Jun 2025 19:32:30 GMT

The world of Google Ads is shifting fast, and 2025 is proving to be a pivotal year. Costs are rising, automation is taking center stage, and the margin for error is shrinking. For local businesses, it is no longer enough to simply show up. Rather, you need to show up with a sound strategy.

Here is what you need to know if you want to stay competitive and make the most of your ad budget.

1. Advertising Costs Are Rising and Not Coming Back Down

The numbers are in, and they are not subtle. According to WordStream’s 2025 benchmarks , the average cost per click has climbed to $5.26, while the average cost per lead now sits at $70.11. For small and local businesses, this means every dollar needs to be working harder than ever.

It’s no longer about spending more. Conversely, it’s about spending smarter. That means refining your targeting, writing ad copy that actually connects with your audience, while making sure your landing pages are built to convert. In a higher-cost environment, efficiency is not optional—it’s survival.

2. Performance Max Is Driving… Whether You Like It or Not

Google continues to invest heavily in Performance Max campaigns, and they are becoming the default for many advertisers. These campaigns use AI to automate everything ad placements, creative selection and bidding strategies.

This level of automation can save time, but only if the foundation is solid. Your conversion tracking needs to be accurate, consistent, and tied to real business goals. Without that, you are letting the system optimize for clicks and impressions instead of outcomes.

Think of it this way: AI might be in the driver’s seat, but you are still responsible for the map.

3. Not All Conversions Are Created Equal

In 2025, Google is placing more emphasis on conversion quality, not just quantity. That means it’s no longer enough to track how many leads you get. Google wants to know which leads are actually valuable.

To help its machine learning make better decisions, Google recommends feeding in signals like lead scoring data, call quality ratings, or even customer lifetime value estimates. The more you can teach the system about what a good lead looks like, the better it can optimize future performance.

If your strategy is still built around chasing volume, you are missing the bigger picture.

4. Local and Mobile Intent Are Still Dominating

Searches that include local intent (like “near me” or “open now”) continue to grow, especially on mobile devices. That growth is good news for local businesses, but only if your campaigns are built to capture it.

You should be using location extensions, running Local Services Ads if your industry qualifies, and maintaining a strong Google Business Profile . These tools help connect your ads to real-world actions like calls, visits, and purchases.

When someone is nearby and ready to buy, you want your business to be the one they find and ultimately trust.

5. Cost per Lead Depends on Your Industry

Not every industry is feeling the same pressure. In fact, some sectors are seeing sharp drops in lead costs. For example, Career and Employment has seen a 46 percent decrease, while Arts and Entertainment is down 32 percent.

Meanwhile, industries like Education, Beauty, and Fashion are experiencing increases. These trends highlight the importance of understanding your benchmarks. If your cost per lead is rising, make sure it is rising for the right reasons, and not just because of poor targeting or weak creative efforts.

Knowing where your industry stands helps you set realistic goals and avoid wasting money on overpriced clicks.

The Bottom Line

Google Ads in 2025 is not just more expensive—it’s significantly more automated, data-driven, and reliant on smart strategy than ever before. For local businesses, the path to success is not about doing more. It is about doing the right things more consistently.

If your campaigns have not been reviewed in a while, now is the time. Look closely at your data, your targeting, and your creative. The businesses that adapt to this new environment will be the ones that grow, even as competition heats up.

Need help figuring it all out? Contact us or check out our Google Business Profile workshops to sharpen your visibility and build a smarter local strategy.

Because in 2025, Google Ads is not a guessing game. It is a precision tool, and it pays to know how to use it.

Case Study - Third Marble Marketing Boosts DC Office Space Leads by 365%

Tue, 20 May 2025 19:48:46 GMT

What is Performance Max and how can Third Marble Marketing help?

You may have noticed an uptick in conversation around Performance Max campaigns. Google first launched Performance Max in 2021. Since then, this campaign type has continued to evolve and expand in features as Google enhances its reach and capabilities.

Performance Max is a goal-based campaign that allows your ads to reach a wider audience across a greater variety of channels like YouTube, Display, Search, and more. The upside of Performance Max is getting your business in front of a larger audience with more dynamic ad content. The downside is trickier data transparency, reduced control over keyword-driven approaches, and ongoing shifts in the Google Ads landscape.

It can be intimidating to navigate new tools and determine whether Performance Max is right for your business and your budget. Every time Google rolls out changes, our team is on it. We work quickly and effectively to get our clients the best results, which is why we’re a Premier Partner—ranking in the top 3% of Google-approved agencies. We’ve worked hard to develop Performance Max strategies that complement our trusted Search Ads process.

We’re committed to staying ahead of the curve while delivering the most meaningful leads at the best price for small businesses.

Office Space in the DC Metro Area

We’ve been helping Metro Offices in the DC Metro area bring in leads since 2021. Recently, we noticed their cost per click was rising as bidding auctions became more competitive. We recommended a new strategy: running a Performance Max campaign alongside their existing Search campaign. Performance Max allows their ads to reach a broader audience while highlighting dynamic ad content. Trusting our team, they moved forward and saw big results.

Before Performance Max Implementation

After Performance Max Implementation

Within three months, this new strategy increased their leads by 365%, reduced their cost per click by 77%, and lowered their average cost per lead by 72%. Impressed by the results from running Performance Max alongside Search, they boosted their ad spend by 33%.

Ready to make Google Ads work for your business with personalized, results-driven strategies? Schedule a call with Third Marble Marketing today.

Conversion Tracking 101

alexh@thirdmarblemarketing.com (Alex Huibsch) — Fri, 16 May 2025 17:58:51 GMT

Conversion tracking plays a crucial role in the success of digital marketing. When set up correctly, it helps marketers identify which efforts drive real results and allows advertising platforms like Google Ads to optimize performance based on actual business outcomes.

What We Consider a Meaningful Conversion

A meaningful conversion is any action that reflects a potential customer’s intent to engage or make a purchase. The most valuable conversions include:

Phone Calls
Form Submissions
Online Purchases

These actions signal a clear interest in your product or service and provide the best data for campaign optimization.

Why We Don’t Track Everything

While it’s technically possible to track almost any website interaction, such as time on site or button clicks, not all actions represent intent. These are often called micro-conversions and may be useful in complex, high-volume campaigns. However, for most businesses, tracking too many low-value actions can dilute the data and lead to misinformed decisions.

The best practice is to focus on conversions that align directly with business goals.

Common Obstacles to Accurate Conversion Tracking

Setting up reliable tracking isn’t always straightforward. A few common challenges include:

Improper Phone Number Formatting: For call tracking to work, phone numbers must be visible and readable on the page—e.g., “Call Us: (123) 456-7890.” Buttons that only say “Call Now” without displaying the number often go untracked.
Lack of a Thank You Page or Success Message: Form submissions should ideally redirect to a dedicated confirmation page. If that’s not possible, a visible and persistent success message can work, though disappearing messages often can’t be tracked.
Third-Party Tools: Platforms like Calendly, CallRail, HubSpot, or CozyCal are commonly used for booking or call forwarding. Some of these support tracking, while others do not. Each case requires an individual assessment based on available integrations.

Tools Commonly Used for Conversion Tracking

The most effective conversion tracking systems rely on a combination of:

Google Ads
Google Tag Manager
Google Analytics

These tools are designed to work together to capture, organize, and report on conversion data, allowing for informed optimization decisions without needing custom software development.

General Setup Process

Setting up conversion tracking usually includes the following steps:

Identify Key Actions: Define which user actions on your website represent conversions.
Gain Access to Tracking Tools: Ensure access to the necessary platforms, typically Google Ads and Google Tag Manager.
Create and Implement Tags: Configure tags that track the identified actions accurately.
Use the Data to Optimize: Monitor performance and adjust campaigns based on tracked results.

This process helps marketers and algorithms alike make better, faster decisions.

What Is Enhanced Conversion Tracking?

Enhanced conversions in Google Ads use first-party data, such as email addresses, phone numbers, or names, submitted through your website to more accurately match conversions to ad interactions. This improves measurement accuracy and has been shown to increase performance by approximately 5% in some campaigns.

Enhanced conversions work best for businesses that collect user information through forms or process purchases directly on their websites.

However, enhanced conversion tracking is not always a good fit. Here are some common reasons why it may not be usable or recommended:

No Form or Purchase Data Collected: If your website doesn’t gather any user information (like email or phone number), there’s nothing for Google to match against.
Third-Party Forms or Booking Tools: Platforms like Calendly, HubSpot, or other embedded tools may not allow access to the data needed for enhanced conversion tracking.
Privacy Concerns or Compliance Restrictions: Businesses with strict privacy policies or legal limitations around data collection may choose not to implement enhanced tracking.
No Access to Technical Setup: If your website team can't implement the necessary tagging through Google Tag Manager or make code changes, the setup may not be possible.

When used in the right context, enhanced conversions can be a powerful tool, but they depend on both technical feasibility and data availability.

Need help setting up or refining your conversion tracking?

Third Marble Marketing includes conversion tracking setup as part of our Google Ads Management service. This ensures accurate, meaningful data from the start to guide your campaigns.

If you're interested in professional management of your Google Ads, with conversion tracking built in, contact us to schedule a consultation!

NAP Consistency: A Simple Way to Help You Outrank Local Competitors

alexh@thirdmarblemarketing.com (Alex Huibsch) — Wed, 23 Apr 2025 15:54:50 GMT

In the ever-evolving world of local SEO, businesses are often drawn to flashy trends and advanced tactics. However, one of the most important (and frequently overlooked) factors that can make a real difference in local search performance is NAP consistency .

NAP stands for Name, Address, and Phone Number .

At first glance, it might seem like basic contact info, but making sure it's accurate and consistent across the web plays a key role in helping your business show up in local search results and stay ahead of competitors.

Why NAP Consistency Still Matters in Local SEO

Search engines like Google rely on the data they find across the internet to determine whether your business is real, trustworthy, and relevant. Inconsistent or conflicting NAP information sends mixed signals, which can impact your visibility in search results. Here’s how maintaining consistency can work in your favor:

1. Builds Trust with Search Engines

Search engines are more likely to trust and rank a business that shows up the same way across multiple credible sources. When your NAP is consistent, it reinforces the legitimacy of your business and can improve your local search visibility—particularly in places like the Google Maps Pack.

2. Improves Local Ranking Potential

Search algorithms often favor businesses that have accurate, uniform information. If your NAP varies across directories, it can weaken your chances of appearing for relevant local searches, resulting in missed opportunities to connect with potential customers.

3. Prevents Customer Confusion

If someone finds your business on Google Maps but sees a different phone number or address on Yelp, they might second-guess whether you’re still in business or move on to a competitor. Consistent information creates a smoother experience for customers.

4. Expands Your Online Visibility

Accurate NAP details help ensure your business is properly listed on a wider range of directories and platforms, making it easier for local customers to find you wherever they search.

5. Reduces Errors and Miscommunications

Inconsistent listings can lead to common issues like calls going to the wrong number or customers showing up at an old location. Keeping things up to date helps avoid these unnecessary problems.

How to Audit Your Business Listings for NAP Consistency:

The first step to improving your NAP consistency is to identify where your business is listed online and spot any discrepancies. Here’s a simple approach:

Manual Searches: Start by Googling your business name, address, and phone number in different combinations. Make note of any outdated or inconsistent listings.
Use Local SEO Tools: Platforms like BrightLocal , Moz Local , and Yext can help you identify mismatches across dozens of directories.
Check Key Directories: Focus on major platforms where customers (and search engines) look for local businesses:
Google Business Profile (your top priority)
Yelp
Facebook
Bing Places
Apple Maps
Local and industry-specific directories
Track It All in a Spreadsheet: Keep a log of each listing, including what’s currently listed and what needs to be fixed.

Steps to Fix Inconsistent Listings:

Once you've identified the inconsistencies, take time to clean them up. Here's how:

Start with your Google Business Profile: This should be your reference point for all other listings. Double-check that every detail is accurate.
Manually Update Other Listings: Visit each directory and update your information to match your Google Business Profile exactly, down to abbreviations, punctuation, and formatting.
Use Data Aggregators: Services like Factual , Neustar Localeze , and Data Axle help distribute your accurate business data across the web.
Consider Listing Management Tools: If manually updating every listing sounds overwhelming, tools and services can automate the process and help maintain consistency over time.
Be Patient: It may take time for updates to be reflected across all platforms. Follow up when needed and check back periodically.

Keep NAP Consistency on Your Radar:

NAP consistency might not feel like the most exciting part of your marketing strategy, but it plays a foundational role in your ability to compete locally. Making it part of your routine business maintenance, especially when changes occur, can prevent issues and help keep your visibility strong.

At Third Marble Marketing , we know that local SEO success starts with getting the basics right. If you're not sure where to begin or simply don't have time to manage all your listings, we're here to help. Our team specializes in local SEO strategies that start with the basics—like NAP consistency—to help you attract more local customers. Contact us today to schedule a consultation and take the first step toward a stronger local presence!

Maintaining Brand Voice Consistency: Ensuring a Clear and Unified Message Across Platforms

alexh@thirdmarblemarketing.com (Alex Huibsch) — Wed, 02 Apr 2025 16:12:49 GMT

In the digital age, brand voice consistency is key to building a strong, recognizable brand. Whether your business engages customers through social media, blog posts, or customer service interactions, maintaining a consistent tone and messaging across all platforms is crucial for brand identity and trust. Here are some practical strategies to ensure your brand voice remains consistent everywhere your audience interacts with you.

1. Define Your Brand Voice

Before you can ensure consistency, you need to define your brand voice. A brand voice is the personality and tone you convey through your content. It reflects your business values, culture, and mission. For example, is your brand voice professional, friendly, humorous, or authoritative?

To define your brand voice, consider the following:

Core Values: What principles guide your company? Are you about innovation, reliability, or creativity?
Target Audience: Who are you speaking to? A brand targeting Gen Z might have a casual, witty tone, while a brand targeting professionals might lean towards a more formal voice.
Emotional Tone: What emotion do you want your audience to feel? Whether it’s excitement, reassurance, or motivation, your voice should reflect this.

Once you’ve identified these elements, document them. Create a brand voice guide that outlines key phrases, vocabulary, and examples of how your voice should sound. This guide will serve as your compass, ensuring consistency across all platforms.

2. Create a Style Guide

A style guide is essential for maintaining consistency, especially as your business grows and more people get involved in content creation. Your style guide should cover:

Tone and Language: Specify the tone and style of communication for each platform. For example, social media might be more casual and conversational, while blog posts could be more informative.
Grammar and Punctuation: Consistency in punctuation (e.g., using the Oxford comma ) and grammar rules can greatly affect how professional your brand appears.
Imagery and Design: While voice is primarily about language, the visuals that accompany your message should also align with your tone. Whether you use bright, playful colors or more minimalist, subdued hues, your design should reflect your voice.

Having a comprehensive style guide means anyone creating content on behalf of your brand knows exactly how to communicate.

3. Train Your Team

Your entire team must understand and embrace your brand voice. Whether it’s your marketing department, customer service team, or content creators, everyone needs to be on the same page. To keep your brand voice consistent across platforms, provide your team with resources like:

Workshops and Training: Hold regular sessions to reinforce your brand's messaging and tone. This could include writing exercises, social media role-playing, or reviewing successful brand campaigns.
Ongoing Feedback: Offer constructive feedback on content to ensure it aligns with your voice. Whether it's through content reviews or monthly meetings, consistently check in with your team.

Remember, keep your brand voice flexible enough to adapt to different contexts (like more serious tones during a crisis) but consistent in core elements, such as clarity and empathy.

4. Understand Platform Nuances

Each platform has its audience and unique characteristics, but your brand voice should remain consistent across all of them. Here’s how to tailor your brand voice while keeping it unified:

Social Media: Social platforms are usually informal and fast-paced. You can use humor, emojis, and casual language to connect with your audience.
Blog Posts: Blogs are a great place to showcase your brand’s expertise. Use a more polished, informative tone, but still keep it in line with your brand voice. A friendly, approachable tone can make your content more relatable.
Customer Service Interactions: Whether it’s over chat, email, or phone, your customer service team must embody your brand’s tone. For example, if your brand is known for being friendly, ensure that your team’s responses reflect that particular attitude even when dealing with complaints or difficult customers.

Being aware of platform differences helps you maintain a unified message while tailoring your approach to fit the environment.

5. Use Automation Tools Wisely

As your business scales, automation tools can be lifesavers in maintaining consistency. However, it’s important not to let automation become robotic. Use tools like social media schedulers or CRM software to streamline communication, but always ensure that the voice feels human and genuine.

When using automated responses (especially in customer service), incorporate your brand voice into the script. Use friendly, helpful, and personalized language, and be mindful of how these responses will be perceived.

6. Monitor and Adapt

Consistency doesn’t mean rigidity. Regularly monitor the performance of your content across different platforms to ensure your message is resonating with your audience. Use analytics and feedback to gauge how well your brand voice is being received. For example:

Social Media Analytics: Track engagement rates to see how your voice is performing on each platform.
Customer Feedback: Pay attention to how customers respond to your tone in service interactions. If your voice is too formal or too casual, it may not align with their expectations.

Adjust your approach as needed, but always stay true to the core values of your brand.

7. Keep It Authentic

Above all, your brand voice must feel authentic. In today’s digital landscape, customers can spot inauthenticity a mile away. Your voice should reflect the real values and personality of your company. Whether you’re posting on Twitter, writing a blog, or answering a customer service question, staying true to your brand will help build trust and loyalty.

Final Thoughts

A consistent brand voice is essential for creating a cohesive customer experience and fostering brand loyalty. By defining your voice, creating a style guide, training your team, and adapting to platform nuances, you can ensure your messaging is clear and unified. Remember, authenticity is key. Be sure to stay true to your brand’s values and always communicate with your audience in a way that resonates with them.

Ready to Strengthen Your Brand Voice Across All Platforms?

Struggling to find time for content creation while managing your business? At Third Marble Marketing , we specialize in writing clear, consistent, and compelling content that resonates with your audience. Whether you need engaging copy on your web pages or informative blog posts, we’re here to help!

Our Content Writing Services are designed to enhance your SEO while staying true to your brand’s core values. We ensure consistency in tone and messaging across all platforms, creating a cohesive brand experience that fosters trust, increases engagement, and drives success.

Contact Third Marble Marketing today to learn more about how our content writing services can elevate your brand voice and consistency!

The Ultimate Guide to Google Business Profile Optimization

alexh@thirdmarblemarketing.com (Alex Huibsch) — Wed, 26 Mar 2025 15:31:26 GMT

Step-by-Step Guide to Optimizing Your Google Business Profile:

Your Google Business Profile (GBP) is a powerhouse for local SEO. Whether you're a budding local business or a seasoned marketer, a well-optimized GBP translates to increased visibility, customer engagement, and conversions. This guide will walk you through every aspect of GBP optimization, from initial setup to ongoing management.

1. Claim & Verify Your Google Business Profile

Before any optimization, you must establish ownership:

Navigate to Google Business Profile Manager and log in.
Search for your business to check for an existing listing.
If found, click "Manage now" to claim it. Otherwise, create a new listing.
Verify your business via postcard, phone, email, or instant verification (if eligible).
Verification grants full control for updates and enhancements.

2. Optimize Your Business Information

A complete and accurate profile is crucial:

Business Name: Use your official business name, consistent with signage and marketing. Avoid keyword stuffing.
Address: Ensure precise and consistent address formatting across all platforms (Yelp, YellowPages, Facebook, etc.).
Phone Number: Employ a local, trackable number, not a call center or toll-free line.
Website: Link to your homepage or a targeted landing page for better tracking.
Categories: Select primary and secondary categories that accurately reflect your business.
Hours of Operation: Maintain up-to-date hours, including holiday schedules.
Attributes: Highlight relevant features like "Free Wi-Fi," "Wheelchair Accessible," or "Outdoor Seating."

3. Leverage Visual Content:

Photos and videos drive engagement:

Profile & Cover Photo: Use high-resolution, brand-representative images.
Interior & Exterior Photos: Showcase your location's atmosphere.
Product & Service Images: Feature your offerings with professional photos.
Team Photos: Build trust with photos of your friendly staff.
Videos: Utilize short, engaging videos (under 30 seconds) to boost interest.

4. Craft a Compelling Business Description

Your description should be informative and engaging:

Integrate relevant keywords naturally for local SEO.
Clearly articulate your unique selling propositions.
Stay within the 750-character limit, highlighting key details in the first 250 characters.
Avoid promotional language, special offers, or misleading claims.

5. Master Review Management:

Reviews significantly impact your reputation and ranking:

Encourage satisfied customers to leave reviews.
Respond to every review, thanking positive reviewers and addressing negative feedback professionally.
Incorporate keywords in responses to enhance search visibility.
Report any fake or spam reviews to Google.

6. Be Proactive with Q&As:

The Q&A feature helps potential customers learn more:

Monitor questions regularly and provide prompt, accurate answers.
Upvote helpful answers to ensure they appear at the top.
Proactively add FAQs to address common inquiries.

7. Utilize Google Posts:

Google Posts keep your profile dynamic:

Post regularly with fresh, relevant content.
Use high-quality images and videos for visual appeal.
Include a clear call to action (CTA) to drive engagement.
Highlight upcoming events and promotions with time-sensitive offers.

8. Optimize Products & Services:

Treat strategic keywords as products and services to drive targeted traffic and boost local SEO:

Keyword as Offering: Treat strong, location-specific keywords as both "products" and "services." Example: "Deck Builder Richmond, VA."
Service Description Focus: For services, write brief, detailed descriptions with relevant keywords. For example: "Expert deck construction in Richmond, VA. Custom designs to enhance your outdoor living."
Product Links to Service Pages: To attract targeted traffic, treat strategic keywords as product listings. For instance, add 'Deck Builder Richmond, VA' as a distinct 'product' entry. Ensure this 'product' directly links to your website's dedicated service page. This approach optimizes search visibility and drives relevant users to your services.
Product Details: Include descriptive text with keywords, and select an appropriate product category.

9. Build Consistent Citations for Local Authority

Citations are the mentions of your business’s name, address, and phone number (NAP) on external websites. They help to validate your business and improve local search rankings. Google cross-references citations across directories and other platforms to confirm legitimacy. Inconsistent or incorrect citations can weaken your local SEO and cause ranking fluctuations.

Major Directories First: Start with high-authority platforms such as Yelp, BBB, Apple Maps, and data aggregators like Foursquare and Data Axle. These sources distribute business details across multiple networks.
Local & Industry-Specific Listings: Get listed in local business directories, chamber of commerce websites, and niche-specific platforms. These citations reinforce relevance and credibility within your market.
Consistency is Key: Ensure your NAP details match exactly across all citations. Variations in abbreviations, formatting, or phone numbers can confuse search engines and reduce visibility.
Earn Organic Mentions: Gain citations through press releases, guest posts, and local blogs. These mentions provide additional authority and referral traffic while strengthening your search presence.

In Closing:

Maximize your local SEO impact with a powerful Google Business Profile. Claim, verify, and optimize your profile with accurate details, engaging visuals, and consistent Google Posts. Actively manage reviews and Q&A, strategically incorporate keywords, and build strong citations. Regular updates and monitoring will drive increased visibility, customer engagement, and conversions, fueling your business growth.

Ready to take your local SEO to the next level?

Let Third Marble Marketing help you unlock the full potential of your Google Business Profile. Contact us today for a free consultation and discover how we can drive more traffic and customers to your business!

Based in Richmond, VA? Take your Google Business Profile to the next level with our hands-on workshops! Learn expert strategies to improve your local search visibility and attract more customers. Learn More and start optimizing your GBP for success!

SEO vs. PPC: A Strategic Guide for Your Business

alexh@thirdmarblemarketing.com (Alex Huibsch) — Mon, 10 Mar 2025 14:11:30 GMT

Which One Do I Need?

When it comes to driving traffic to your website, you’ve likely heard the terms SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and PPC (Pay-Per-Click). Both are essential digital marketing strategies, but they serve different purposes.

So, how do you determine which one is the right fit for your business? The truth is that SEO and PPC work best when used together, but understanding their differences will help you decide where to focus your efforts based on your goals and budget. Let’s take a closer look.

What is SEO?

SEO focuses on improving your website’s visibility in organic search results. This involves optimizing your website’s content, structure, and technical elements to rank higher on search engines like Google in the organic section of the Search Results Page. Some key components of SEO include:

Keyword Optimization : Identifying and using relevant keywords in title tags, meta descriptions, alt tags, and onsite copy to attract the right audience.
High-Quality Content : Creating valuable, authoritative, and informative content that appeals to users and search engines.
Technical SEO : Improving site speed, mobile-friendliness, and security to enhance user experience.
Backlink Building : Earning links from reputable websites to increase domain authority.

Benefits of SEO

Builds Long-Term Organic Traffic : Once your website ranks well, you can enjoy a steady stream of visitors without ongoing ad spend.
More Cost-Effective Over Time : While SEO requires an upfront investment in content and optimization, it becomes more affordable as your rankings improve.
Boosts Credibility and Trust : Appearing in organic search results gives your business more authority in your industry.

What is PPC?

PPC is a paid advertising strategy where businesses bid on keywords to appear in sponsored search results. Every time a user clicks on your ad, you pay a fee. Google Ads is the most popular PPC platform, allowing businesses to target specific demographics, locations, and search queries.

Benefits of PPC

Delivers Instant Traffic : PPC generates immediate site visitors, whereas SEO results are not immediate.
Highly Targeted : You can reach specific audiences based on keywords, location, demographics, and even online behavior.
Measurable Results : PPC provides detailed analytics, allowing you to track performance and adjust campaigns for better ROI.
Scalable: Depending on your immediate business needs, you can increase and decrease your budget, and therefore the number of leads and sales you get each month from PPC. SEO is not that nimble.

Setting Realistic Expectations: SEO is a Marathon, PPC is a Sprint

When deciding between SEO and PPC, it’s important to set realistic expectations for results. Think of SEO as a marathon and PPC as a sprint. Both can get you to the finish line, but they work at different speeds and require different strategies.

SEO: The Marathon Approach

SEO takes time, just like training for a marathon. You won’t see results overnight, but with consistent effort, you’ll build momentum and endurance.

Timeline Expectation:

Months 1-3: Research, technical optimization, and content creation. During this period of time, expect little to no ranking improvements.
Months 4-6: Gradual ranking improvements and some organic traffic growth.
Months 6-12: Stronger rankings, increased traffic, and leads (provided ongoing effort continues).
1 Year & Beyond: Established rankings, steady organic traffic, and a strong foundation that requires maintenance, but not constant spending.

The key takeaway is that SEO compounds over time. The more effort you put in early, the more rewards you reap later.

PPC: The Sprint Approach

PPC is like a sprint—you get results quickly, but you have to keep paying to stay ahead. If you stop running (funding your ads), the traffic stops too.

Timeline Expectation:

Week 1: Campaign setup, keyword research, and ad creation.
Weeks 2-4: Ads go live, and traffic starts coming in immediately.
Months 1-3: Performance optimization. This entails adjusting bids, refining targeting, and improving ad quality for better ROI.
Ongoing: As long as you continue funding your ads, you’ll keep generating traffic and leads.

PPC provides instant results, but costs can add up. Unlike SEO, which continues to bring traffic over time, PPC stops working the moment you turn off your ads.

What’s the Right Strategy?

Need leads now? Start with PPC.
Want long-term sustainable growth? Invest in SEO.
Want the best of both worlds? Run PPC while building your SEO strategy in the background.

Understanding these timelines will help you manage expectations and make informed marketing decisions.

In Closing

All in all, SEO and PPC are not competitors. In fact, they complement each other. Investing in both strategies can maximize your visibility and help your business grow.

If you need help deciding where to start, contact Third Marble Marketing , and we’ll help you craft the perfect strategy for your goals and budget!

Mastering Content for Small Businesses

alexh@thirdmarblemarketing.com (Alex Huibsch) — Wed, 05 Mar 2025 16:29:41 GMT

Tips for Driving Engagement on a Budget

Content marketing is one of the most powerful tools for small businesses to connect with their audience, build trust, and drive sales. However, many business owners hesitate to dive into content creation, fearing they lack the budget or expertise. The good news? You don’t need a massive budget to produce compelling content that engages customers and strengthens your brand. In this guide, we’ll explore actionable tips to help small businesses create high-impact content while maximizing their marketing dollars.

1. Know Your Audience and Their Pain Points

Before you create content, take time to understand your ideal customers. What challenges do they face? What solutions can you provide? Use free tools like Google Analytics, social media insights, and customer feedback to pinpoint your audience’s needs. Creating content that directly addresses their questions and pain points will position your business as a valuable resource.

2. Leverage Free and Low-Cost Content Creation Tools

Professional-looking content doesn’t have to come with a high price tag. There are plenty of free or affordable tools to create blog posts, graphics, videos, and more:

Canva – Create eye-catching graphics and social media posts.
CapCut or InShot – Edit videos for TikTok, Instagram Reels, or YouTube Shorts.
Google Trends – Identify trending topics related to your industry.
Grammarly – Ensure your content is clear and polished.
ChatGPT , Gemini , and/or Grok – Brainstorm content ideas and improve your writing process.

3. Optimize for SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

Search engines reward businesses that produce high-quality, informative content. Follow these SEO best practices:

Research and use relevant keywords (use Google’s Keyword Planner for guidance).
Write compelling meta descriptions and headlines.
Structure content with headers (H1, H2, H3) for readability.
Include strategic link placement : internal and external links for credibility.
Enhance your authority by creating content based on personal experiences and case studies.
Publish consistently—Google rewards fresh, relevant content.

4. Repurpose and Recycle Content

Small businesses can stretch their content further by repurposing it across multiple platforms. Here’s how:

Turn a blog post into a series of social media posts.
Convert customer FAQs into an engaging video series.
Use client testimonials to create compelling graphics.
Host a live Q&A session based on your most-read content.

5. Engage With Your Audience on Social Media

Content creation isn’t just about posting—it’s about conversation. Engage with your audience by:

Responding to comments, reviews, and other messages promptly.
Asking questions to encourage discussion.
Running polls or contests to boost interaction.
Sharing user-generated content to build community.

6. Collaborate With Other Small Businesses and Influencers

Partnerships can amplify your reach without extra costs. Consider:

Guest blogging on a partner’s website.
Cross-promoting on social media.
Hosting joint giveaways or events.
Partnering with local influencers for authentic endorsements.

7. Encourage and Showcase Customer Reviews

Google favors businesses with strong E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness). Positive reviews build credibility and help boost local search rankings. Encourage satisfied customers to leave reviews on Google and showcase testimonials on your website and social media.

Final Thoughts

Small businesses don’t need a big budget to master content marketing. By understanding your audience, leveraging free tools, optimizing for SEO, repurposing content, and engaging on social media, you can create a strong digital presence that drives real results. Follow these actionable tips, and your small business can stand out and thrive in today’s competitive digital landscape.

Ready to elevate your content strategy? Contact Third Marble Marketing for expert guidance on getting your business noticed online!

The Future of SEO in 2025

alexh@thirdmarblemarketing.com (Alex Huibsch) — Thu, 13 Feb 2025 22:28:46 GMT

Adapting to AI, Voice Search, and Google's Evolving Algorithms

SEO is undergoing a seismic shift in 2025, driven by artificial intelligence (AI), voice search, and evolving search engine algorithms. Businesses and marketers must stay ahead of these trends to maintain visibility and drive conversions. In this article, we’ll explore what’s coming next and how to adapt for continued success.

The Rise of AI in Search and the Impact on SEO

Google’s AI Overviews and AI-powered search results are changing the way users interact with information. Rather than clicking through multiple websites, users often get direct answers from AI-generated summaries. This poses a major threat to non-conversion website traffic, as fewer users may visit pages for informational searches.

AI Overviews: A Double-Edged Sword

AI Overviews pull information from a limited number of sources, often relying on outdated or non-reliable websites. For websites ranking in the top 10, there’s possibly an opportunity to be featured in AI-generated summaries, but it also means a shift in strategy is necessary. Businesses should focus on becoming an authoritative source in their niche, ensuring their content is up-to-date, well-structured, and aligned with Google's ranking factors, which includes demonstrating E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness). For more insights on how to improve your local SEO efforts and conversion rates, check out our article on helpful content strategies.

AI and Informational Searches for Local Businesses

For local businesses, AI has yet to dominate service-related search queries like “plumber in Atlanta, GA.” Users looking for a business to solve a problem still rely on Google’s traditional search results, Maps, and local business listings. While AI Overviews might eventually improve in understanding local intent, they are currently unreliable in surfacing the best local options. This means businesses should continue optimizing their Google Business Profile, adding more helpful content on service pages, and leveraging third-party sites. For further guidance, explore our blog post on SEO advice for service pages .

Adapting to AI-Powered Search and Google's Changing Algorithms

While AI-driven search is gaining traction, traditional SEO tactics are still highly relevant. Here’s how businesses can adapt:

Optimize for AI Overviews : If your site ranks in the top 10, you have a strong chance of appearing in AI-generated results. Ensure your content is well-structured, authoritative, and relevant.
Leverage SEO Barnacles : Your presence on high-authority third-party sites (e.g., Yelp, Apple Maps, industry directories) will become increasingly important as search engines evolve. Being relevant across multiple platforms will help you remain visible across different search tools.
Prioritize Local SEO : Google’s AI has not yet fully integrated local commercial keywords into AI Overviews, but this could change. Optimize your Google Business Profile, collect customer reviews, and ensure NAP (name, address, phone number) consistency across all listings.
Prepare for Voice Search Growth : With more users searching via smart assistants, businesses should optimize for conversational queries and long-tail keywords to improve visibility. This can be addressed with additional blog posts with questions people might ask a digital assistant.

The Future of AI Search and Local Business Listings

Google has already started integrating Yelp and Apple Maps into search results, and by the end of the year, we may see improvements in local AI-driven search. However, AI’s ability to accurately recommend local businesses is still developing. This presents an opportunity for local businesses to continue focusing on traditional SEO while preparing for potential AI search enhancements.

Final Thoughts

SEO in 2025 is a mix of traditional best practices and adapting to AI-driven search. While AI Overviews threaten informational traffic, businesses that optimize for AI inclusion and strengthen their presence on third-party sites will stay competitive.

Local businesses, in particular, should continue refining their SEO strategies as AI has not yet fully disrupted commercial search intent. By maintaining strong local SEO efforts ensuring visibility across search tools, businesses can navigate the evolving search landscape and maintain or drive more conversions.

Ready to pass your SEO efforts to an award-winning company with over 16 years experience? Schedule a call with one of our experts today!

Google Reviews Glitch: What You Need to Know About the Review Count Bug

alexh@thirdmarblemarketing.com (Alex Huibsch) — Wed, 12 Feb 2025 22:04:48 GMT

The Google Reviews Count Bug: A Worldwide Issue

If you’ve recently noticed a sudden drop in your Google review count, you’re not alone. Businesses worldwide have been affected by a widespread glitch in Google Reviews, causing displayed review counts to be significantly lower than actual figures. While this issue has led many business owners to believe they lost reviews permanently, the reviews were never truly deleted—only the displayed count was incorrect.

Google Acknowledges the Issue & Begins Fixing It

The issue was first reported last Friday ( Feb 7, 2025 ) and officially confirmed by Google on Monday. As of February 11, 2025 , Google has been actively rolling out a fix, and businesses are starting to see their review counts return to normal. Many small business owners and local SEO experts have reported incremental improvements, with some seeing reviews reappear at a slow but steady pace.

Statements from Google & Experts

Victoria Kroll from Google made an official statement in the Google Business Profiles Forum:

"We’re aware of an issue affecting some Google Business Profiles, causing some profiles to show lower-than-actual review counts due to a display issue. The reviews themselves have not been removed. We’re working hard to resolve this and restore accurate review counts as quickly as possible. We appreciate your patience and will share updates on this thread as they become available."

Google Product Expert Mendryk Yaroslav also provided guidance for businesses experiencing missing review counts. He suggests:

Waiting for updates from Google regarding full restoration.

Checking after a week to see if the review count has been fully restored.
Contacting Google support if the issue persists. Instructions to do so are as follows:
Go to the Google support page.
Select your business profile.
Type “Missing Reviews” in the support field.
Select “Reviews missing” and proceed with the steps to submit an email request.
Posting on forums if support doesn’t resolve the issue so that experts can escalate the case.

Business Owners Speak Out: Real Cases from the Community

Business owners have been vocal about their frustration with the glitch. On Reddit, several users shared their experiences :

"Just lost over 1000 reviews for one of my restaurants. And I just opened a new location and lost another 50 reviews there. I worked so hard to get this feedback, and seeing my business drop from 4800 to 4300, then 4000, and now 3700 is heartbreaking. Contacted Google 100 times with no response."
"If the reviews were physically removed, I would be more worried. But as it stands, I’m pretty calm about it as it’s just the total number. The number was always a bit off and had a lag anyway. Losing 20% of your reviews is frustrating, but I hope Google sorts it out soon."
"My business had over 2149+ 5.0-star reviews, all genuine from walk-in and online customers. Now I’m down to 1229."
"One of my businesses lost 100 reviews, the other lost 10."

What to Expect Next

As Google works to resolve the problem, many businesses have already seen partial restoration of their review counts. Reports from affected users show:

"The issue has been resolved for us, and our review count is (nearly) back to where it was."
"I got back 11 out of the 30 missing reviews."
"A slow trickle on the up! About 1-2 reviews being added back every few minutes."
"Yes, I got a few back but not all of them. Hopefully, they’ll all be back by tomorrow ."

What You Should Do Now

Monitor your Google Business Profile for improvements in your review count.
Follow Google’s official updates on their forums and social media channels.
Report your issue to Google support if your reviews do not reappear within a week.
Seek help from Google Product Experts on forums to escalate the issue if needed.

While this glitch has caused significant distress for many business owners, the good news is that Google is actively working on a fix, and review counts are starting to be restored. If your business is still affected, follow the recommended steps above to ensure your reviews are counted accurately once again.

Case Study - Third Marble Increases Law Firms Leads by 4100%

Thu, 10 Oct 2024 16:34:54 GMT

Washington, DC Area Law Firm Wins Big

Every day new advances in technology and shifts in the economy change the landscape of digital marketing. The team at Third Marble Marketing is committed to creating dynamic processes and personalized solutions that drive the best results for small businesses. We know that every dollar counts and we want to help our clients make the most of every penny.

This DC Area Law Firm trusted our guidance and processes alongside our years of experience and expertise. With patience and investment, within 9 months, they saw huge results.

February

When we looked at the account in February 2024, our Conversion Tracking Specialist immediately identified and remedied issues with the conversion tracking. We noticed their location settings would benefit from being diversified. We implemented one of our Performance Plans to help ensure every click was a potential lead. Google takes time to understand changes, but over the coming months we began to see the cost-per-click lower as leads significantly increased.

May

By May, we had increased leads by 300% while decreasing cost-per-lead by 63%. This was a result of the optimization team’s efforts to narrowly focus the targeting to only the highest quality keywords that had the highest probability of converting.

After consideration, we decided they were a great candidate for a new Demand Gen campaign.This tool helps reach a wider audience across platforms by presenting ads to the most relevant potential customers all while allowing us to maintain control over creative content.

We’ve introduced carefully built automation scripts to help monitor our clients’ campaigns daily which we applied to their campaigns. Meanwhile our Optimization Team, staffed by real people, continued to monitor the account, adjusting for the best bidding strategies and keywords. The client was so happy with their results and our efforts, they invested more into their Google Ads budget.

August

By August, the combination of the Demand Gen campaign, automated scripts, real person optimization, and increased investment, this client continued to see even greater success at lower cost-per-click and lead. We increased their conversions by 425% while decreasing both cost-per-lead by 64% and cost-per-click by 87%.

September

By September, the client continued to be so satisfied with results, they invested more into their Google Ad spend. Their cost-per-click remained consistently low while we increased leads by 100% and decreased cost-per-lead by 40%. The quality of the leads improved as well, giving the law firm higher-paying cases and more revenue to re-invest in advertising for the future.

Overall, from February to September, cost-per-click decreased by 72%, leads increased by 4100%, and cost-per-lead decreased by 92%.

Are you ready to invest your time and resources into growing your customer base with dynamic and customized Google Ads solutions? We highly recommend signing up for the Growth Plan for clients looking to experience these kinds of results. Your monthly strategy calls and communication with your Account Manager makes it possible to see these kinds of results! Connect with our team today!

SAVE THIS EMAIL: Your Guide to Removing 1-Star Reviews

alexh@thirdmarblemarketing.com (Alex Huibsch) — Thu, 03 Oct 2024 17:09:00 GMT

One bad review can cast a long shadow online. It can deter potential customers and damage your reputation. But before you panic, there's good news! Google allows businesses to flag reviews that violate their policies, and with the right approach, you can get them removed.

This email is your one-stop shop for reclaiming your online reputation. We'll walk you through the process step-by-step, including some extra tips to maximize your chances of success.

Important: Remember, Google won't remove reviews simply because you disagree with them. They only remove reviews that violate their policies. You can find a full breakdown of Google's review policies for more information.

Step 1: Gather Evidence:

Before you flag a review, take screenshots of it. This will serve as crucial evidence if the review is reposted after removal. Additionally, screenshot each page of the reporting process for your records. This might come in handy later if you need help from the Google community forum.

Step 2: Flag the Review

Here's how to flag a review depending on how you access your Business Profile:

Google Maps: Open Google Maps on your computer, find your Business Profile, locate the review, click "More" and then "Flag as inappropriate."
Google Search: On your computer, find your Business Profile in Google Search, click "Read Reviews," locate the review, click "Info," and choose the violation you want to report.

Step 3: Report the Review in Your Business Profile Management Tool

For an extra layer of reporting, head to your Business Profile Management Tool:

Go to the Reviews Management Tool
Check the email address displayed is the one you use for your Business Profile.
Click "Confirm" and choose your business.
Select "Report a new review for removal."
Click "Report" on the specific review you want to flag.
Choose the violation category and submit.

Step 4: Check the Status and Appeal (if needed)

The Reviews Management Tool allows you to check the status of your flagged review. You can see if it's "Decision Pending," "Report reviewed – no policy violation," or "Escalated - check your email for updates."
If the review is deemed to not violate policy, you can submit a one-time appeal. Go back to the Reviews Management Tool, choose "Check the status of a review I reported previously and appeals options," and follow the prompts.

Remember: Be patient! Google can take several days to assess a review.

Bonus Tip: If your appeal is denied and you believe the review is truly inappropriate, consider reaching out to the reviewer directly. A polite and professional message explaining your perspective can sometimes lead to them removing the review.

By following these steps and keeping detailed records, you'll be well-equipped to tackle negative reviews and protect your online reputation. Don't let one bad review hold you back from success!

Need help reclaiming your online reputation? Third Marble Marketing specializes in helping businesses build and manage strong Google Business Profiles. Our experts can help you optimize your listings, attract new customers, and manage your online reputation. Contact us today for a consultation and discover how we can elevate your business's online visibility.

We Hope This Helps!

Case Study - How Third Marble Grows HVAC Businesses

Fri, 23 Aug 2024 20:11:39 GMT

How Third Marble used Google Ads to increase three different HVAC businesses leads. Three case studies rolled into one!

As summer cools and the leaves start to yellow, folks all over the country will need HVAC maintenance, repairs, and installations to keep their homes safe and comfortable. Let our Google Ads experts help your business thrive this season! Make sure your company outperforms the competition to catch the attention of new local customers. With our years of experience navigating the ever-changing shifts in the digital landscape, we have a proven track record of getting results and meaningful leads for HVAC companies.

We’ll work alongside you to create a successful Google Ads campaign that reflects your unique messaging and services. Our Account Management Team and Optimization Specialists will regularly monitor and adjust your campaign to hone in on the best keywords, ads, and targeting to drive the best traffic to your business through all four seasons.

HVAC Company 1

This HVAC company connected with Third Marble Marketing last December. Between their first month and now, we’ve lowered their cost per click by 47%. We’ve increased their leads by 127% while decreasing the cost per lead by 58%. Within 7 months, we’ve helped them generate more website traffic, new customers, and increased revenue.

First Month

Now

HVAC Company 2

This HVAC company has trusted Third Marble Marketing with their Google Ads for ten years. In the last year, they’ve lowered their investment by 48%. Our Google Ads team worked with their needs to still drive success. We’ve maintained their cost per click while actively increasing their leads by 70% and decreasing the cost per lead by 69%.

Last Year

Now

HVAC Company 3

This HVAC company reached out to Third Marble Marketing in 2016 and we’ve been working together since. They’ve been so happy with their results, they’ve steadily increased their investment over time including a 25% increase just in the last year. With that investment, we’ve decreased cost per click by 38% and increased leads by 37%, getting them both more clicks and more leads.

Last Year

Now

Are you ready to build your online presence while growing your revenue? Make your Google Ads investment weather all seasons with Third Marble Marketing. Schedule Your Intro Call Today!

9 Conversion-Boosting Tips from Third Marble Marketing

alexh@thirdmarblemarketing.com (Alex Huibsch) — Tue, 13 Aug 2024 18:09:54 GMT

Are you looking to turn more website visitors into paying customers? You're not alone! Here at Third Marble Marketing, we've helped countless businesses achieve dramatic conversion increases. In this post, we'll share 9 powerful tips that can help you do the same.

1. Clarity is King

Headline Power: Make your "what you do" and "where you do it" crystal clear right off the bat. Think headlines like "Pizza Delivery in South Boston, MA" or "Maid Services in Billings, MT." Get straight to the point because you've only got a matter of seconds to grab attention.

2. ONE Call to Action

Confident CTA: Don't overwhelm visitors with a dozen ways to contact you. Choose a single, clear call to action (CTA) and tell them the benefit of taking it. Is it "Call Now for a Free Quote" or "Get Your Free T-Shirt - Fill Out the Form Below"? Consistency is key, so use the same CTA language throughout your site. Repeat it at the top, bottom, and in the middle of long pages for maximum impact.
Mobile Matters: If your main CTA is a call, consider a floating click-to-call button for mobile users (think 80% of your traffic!). Make taking action ridiculously easy!

3. Breakdown the Journey

Process Transparency: Outline your sales or quote process clearly. Let visitors know what to expect after they take the CTA. Example: "1. Call Us for a Free Estimate Appointment. 2. We'll Meet at Your Home for Measurements. 3. Receive Multiple Quote Options." This builds trust and sets expectations.

4. Stand Out from the Crowd

Find Your Edge: What makes YOU the best choice? Perhaps you have the fastest service, unbeatable quality, and/or value pricing. Identify your unique selling proposition (USP) and shout it from the rooftops (metaphorically speaking).

5. Social Proof Power

Build Trust with Testimonials: Show potential customers why they should trust you. Feature awards, reviews, testimonials, licenses, and certifications. Social proof builds confidence and encourages conversions.

6. Answer Their Burning Questions

Anticipate Needs: Think about the top 10 questions potential customers might have:
"What services do you offer?"
"Where do you operate?"
"What are your hours?"

Answer these questions quickly and clearly throughout your website.

7. Speed is Key

Fast Loading Websites Convert: Nobody likes waiting for a website to load. Aim for a Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) of less than 6 seconds on mobile (ideally under 4 seconds). Use Google's PageSpeed Insights tool to identify areas for improvement. If you have a slow website, consider a website refresh or a faster hosting plan.

8. People Connect with People

Authentic Images: Replace generic stock photos with real pictures of your team. This personal touch builds trust and reinforces your brand.

9. “Above the Fold” Matters

First Impression Counts: The content visible without scrolling is critical, especially on mobile. Ditch the hero image and replace it with a clear message that tells visitors they've arrived at the right place.

TMM Conversion-Boosting Tips: Recap

Third Marble Marketing offers nine key strategies to increase website conversions. The first step is to ensure clarity and focus. A strong, concise headline that clearly states the business and location is essential for capturing attention. Additionally, a single, compelling call to action should be prominently displayed throughout the website.

To build trust and transparency, businesses should outline their sales process and clearly communicate their unique selling proposition. Leveraging social proof through testimonials, awards, and certifications can significantly boost credibility. Addressing potential customer questions directly on the website is crucial for providing valuable information.

Website speed is another critical factor. A slow-loading site can deter visitors, so optimizing for fast load times is essential. Lastly, using authentic images of the team and prioritizing essential content above the fold can create a positive first impression and foster a personal connection with visitors. By implementing these strategies, businesses can effectively improve their conversion rates and turn more website visitors into paying customers.

Beware of the Google Maps Pin Scam: Protect Your Business Profile's Ranking

alexh@thirdmarblemarketing.com (Alex Huibsch) — Thu, 25 Jul 2024 16:16:31 GMT

Protect Your Business Profile's Ranking

There's a sneaky tactic emerging in the digital landscape that can wreak havoc on your business's online presence. This scam targets Google Maps and Google Business Profiles (GBP), potentially causing a significant drop in your rankings and customer traffic.

Understanding the Scam

The scam hinges on manipulating the map pin associated with your Google Business Profile. Malicious actors—possibly even competitors—can exploit the "suggest an edit" feature on your GBP listing. This feature allows users to propose changes to your profile details, including the map pin location.

By suggesting an edit and moving the pin to a completely different location, scammers trick Google's algorithms into believing your business no longer operates at its real address. This misplaced pin can significantly impact your ranking in local search results, making it harder for potential customers to find you online.

Why This Scam is Dangerous

The most concerning aspect of this scam is the lack of notification from Google. Business owners remain completely unaware of the altered map pin unless they actively monitor their listing. This means you could be losing valuable customer traffic without even realizing it.

Furthermore, attempting to fix the issue by simply logging into your Google Business Profile and repositioning the pin yourself can be counterproductive. Many businesses who have tried this have unfortunately experienced suspension of their Google Business Profile.

Safeguarding Your Business Profile

Here's how to protect your Google Business Profile from the map pin scam:

Regular Monitoring: Develop a routine to regularly check your Google Business Profile for any unauthorized edits. Pay close attention to the map pin location and ensure it accurately reflects your business address.
Suspicious Activity: If you discover a misplaced pin, don't attempt to move it directly from your Google Business Profile login. This could trigger a suspension.
Indirect Fix: Here's the recommended approach to rectify a misplaced pin:
Log out: Log out of your Google account associated with your Google Business Profile.
Search for Listing: Using a separate browser window or device, search for your business on Google Maps.
Suggest an Edit: Click on the "suggest an edit" button on your business listing.
Change Details: Select "change name or other details" followed by "edit map location."
Correct Pin Location: Drag and drop the map pin to its accurate location.
Save Changes: Click "Save" to finalize the correction.

Additional Tips

Verification: Whenever possible, verify your Google Business Profile through the official channels. Verification adds an extra layer of security and can make it more challenging for scammers to manipulate your listing.
Alerts: Consider setting up Google Alerts to notify you whenever any changes are made to your business listing. This allows for early detection and swift action in case of unauthorized edits.
Report Activity: If you suspect the map pin scam has targeted you, report the activity to Google directly here . This helps them track and address the issue more effectively.

Conclusion

By staying vigilant and following these steps, you can protect your Google Business Profile from this deceptive scam and ensure your business remains visible to potential customers. Remember, a well-maintained and accurate Google Business Profile is crucial for attracting local customers and driving business growth.

Benefits of a Combined SEO and Google Ads Strategy

alexh@thirdmarblemarketing.com (Alex Huibsch) — Thu, 18 Jul 2024 20:30:26 GMT

Learn More About How SEO & Google Ads Efforts Can Benefit Each Other

Utilizing SEO (Search Engine Optimization) alongside Google Ads creates a powerful digital marketing approach. Here's a breakdown of the advantages you can expect, including some key cost-saving benefits:

Increased Visibility and Reach

Dominate Search Results: Occupy prime real estate on Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) with both organic listings and paid placements, boosting your chances of being seen by potential customers.
Immediate Results with SEO's Long-Term Growth: Google Ads delivers instant traffic, while SEO cultivates organic visibility that builds over time. This combination provides a well-rounded strategy.

Enhanced Keyword Targeting and Insights

Refine Keyword Strategy: Google Ads allows you to test a wider range of keywords and discover the most effective ones to target with your SEO efforts.
Understand User Intent: By analyzing user behavior in your Google Ads campaigns, you gain valuable insights into user intent, which can inform your SEO content strategy.

Improved Brand Credibility and Trust

Double the Trustworthiness: Ranking organically and having paid placements can strengthen your brand's credibility as users perceive organic results as more objective.
Increased Brand Awareness: Google Ads expands your brand's reach, fostering greater recognition and familiarity among potential customers.

Cost-Effective Advantages

Dynamic Budget Allocation: As cost per click (CPC) rises across industries, you can strategically adjust your Google Ads budget. During the off-season, SEO helps generate leads, reducing your reliance on paid advertising.
Scalability During Fluctuations: If your business experiences a revenue dip, you can temporarily pause your Google Ads while SEO continues to drive traffic. This allows you to resume paid advertising when finances improve.
Organic Visibility During Budget Constraints: Limited budgets may prevent your Google Ads from appearing for every relevant keyword. SEO ensures you still maintain a presence on page one of search results, even when your paid ads aren't running.

Data-Driven Optimization and Decision Making

Combined Data Analysis: SEO provides insights into organic traffic, user behavior, and long-term trends, while Google Ads offers detailed metrics on ad performance and conversions. Analyzing both paints a clearer picture for informed decision-making.
Track and Optimize Campaigns: With a combined approach, you can track the effectiveness of both SEO and Google Ads campaigns, allowing for ongoing optimization to maximize return on investment (ROI).

Additional SEO and Local Search Benefits

Local SEO Boost: Optimize your website and content for local search terms while using Google Ads' location targeting to ensure users see your ads in your area.

SEO and Google Ads Synergy

Improved Quality Score: Having well-optimized meta descriptions and title tags through SEO can improve your Google Ads quality score, potentially lowering your cost per click.
Content Repurposing: Content created for SEO purposes can be repurposed to enhance Google Ad copy, creating consistency and potentially improving ad performance.
Landing Page Optimization: Improving landing page content through SEO can lead to better conversion rates for both organic traffic and users arriving from your Google Ads.

Conclusion

In summary, combining SEO and Google Ads creates a synergistic digital marketing strategy that delivers immediate results, fosters long-term growth, offers valuable data for continuous improvement, and provides cost-saving advantages.

Interested in adding SEO, Google Ads, or both to your current marketing plans? Schedule a call with one of our experts today!

Vendor Partner Highlight - Housecall Pro

alexh@thirdmarblemarketing.com (Alex Huibsch) — Mon, 08 Jul 2024 15:56:01 GMT

Streamline Your Home Improvement Business with Housecall Pro

At Third Marble Marketing, we understand the challenges home improvement businesses face. Juggling appointments, managing technicians, and handling invoices can eat up valuable time you could be spending on growing your business. That’s why we’re excited to announce that we now officially recommend Housecall Pro, a powerful field service management software, to our clients.

What is Housecall Pro?

Housecall Pro is an all-in-one cloud-based solution designed to streamline your operations and simply your life. It offers a user-friendly mobile app and web portal, packed with the following features that help you:

Schedule and Dispatch Jobs: Manage your technicians’ schedules, assign jobs based on location and availability, and provide them with all the information they need to get the job done.
Effortless Invoicing and Payments: Create and send invoices, accept payments online, and track customer payment history all from one place.

Exceptional Customer Management: Store customer data securely track service history, and automate appointment reminders and follow-up emails to keep your customers informed.
Boost Your Marketing: Leverage built-in email and postcard marketing tools, and online review management to reach new customers and build your reputation.
Data-Driven Decisions: Gain valuable insights with real-time analytics on job performance, revenue, and customer feedback.

The Benefits of Housecall Pro

Third Marble Marketing recommends Housecall Pro because it offers a variety of benefits for home improvement businesses:

Increased Efficiency: Streamline scheduling, dispatching, invoicing, and payments to complete more jobs in less time.
Improved Customer Service: Manage customer data effectively track service history, and provide timely updates for a better customer experience.
Enhanced Communication: Communicate with technicians and customers in real time to avoid miscommunications and errors.
Revenue Growth: Improved efficiency, better customer service, and a larger customer base all lead to one thing—increased revenue!
Scalability: Housecall Pro grows with your business. Start with a basic plan and add features as you need them.

Curious About Housecall Pro Reviews?

“There are just so many things that Housecall Pro does for us that a lot of it becomes automatic. It’s a win-win.” - Luke S., Owner, Knight Professional Window Cleaning, Independence, MO
"One of the reasons why I love Housecall Pro is because I don't have to use multiple apps to accomplish the job. The texting with the customer, email confirmations, seeing the schedule—everything is colorized. Every year Housecall Pro is adding more and more things that we're using, from time tracking, GPS tracking, integrating with QuickBooks, to even doing your estimates." - Joe Massa, Owner, Airhawk Heating & Cooling, Odessa, FL

Getting Started with Housecall Pro

Getting started with Housecall Pro is simple. Sign up for an account on their website and enter your business information, technician details, and service offerings. In just two steps, you’ll be ready to transform your business!

Third Marble Marketing - Your Partner in Growth

At Third Marble Marketing, we’re committed to helping home improvement businesses succeed. By recommending Housecall Pro, we provide the tools you need to streamline operations, improve customer service, and grow your business.

Case Study - Tangible Results for Your Dentistry Practice

Mon, 08 Jul 2024 15:41:30 GMT

How Google Ads Can Benefit Your Dental Practice

Are you ready to outshine the competition and dial into the power of Google Ads to drive reliable traffic and meaningful leads to your website? Third Marble Marketing has years of experience working alongside dental practices to do just that. By developing the Third Marble Way, we’ve created cost-effective solutions to generate the most return on your ad spend. We make the process super-easy and hasslefree so you start seeing results within a few months! No matter what service you want to focus on - dental cleanings, orthodontics, Invisalign - our team of Google Ads experts can help.

As a Google Ads Beta Testing Agency, we know the changes Google is going to make before everyone else. This allows us to stay on top of the latest algorithms and improve our processes constantly to get our clients the best possible Google results for the most affordable price. Our team monitors your ads and works alongside you to help your business grow. Here’s results from four dental practices throughout the US so you see how we can help your dental practice shine in the digital landscape.

Locally Owned Dental Practice 1

In their second month, we helped this dental practice get 5 leads. Their results converted into effective revenue for their business so they quickly raised their ads budget. With our continued ads optimizing, four months later we brought in 46 leads. That’s 820% increase in leads with 50% decrease in cost per lead.

Locally Owned Dental Practice 2

In their second month running their Google Ads, this dental practice had already brought 7 meaningful leads alongside a low cost per click and fantastic cost per lead. Over a year later, they’re still working with Third Marble to continue bringing in new clients and more revenue. Even as Google raises the price of clicks, our team’s ability to stay ahead of the curve didn’t just grow conversions, but lowered the cost per lead by 17%!

Locally Owned Dental Practice 3

In their second month, this dental practice brought in 21 leads. Over the following 2 months, our team increased their leads by 52% and decreased their cost per lead by 37%!

Dental Practice 4

By their third month, this dental practice already had 8 leads! They were so happy with their results, they’ve continued their ads into the new year. Just recently, the Third Marble Way helped them secure 13 leads. That’s a 62% increase in leads with a 39% decrease in the cost per lead.

In a competitive market, let Third Marble Marketing help you harness the power of Google Ads to drive new clients to your dental practice. Find out why locally owned dental practices across the USA trust Third Marble Marketing!

Case Study - Third Marble Improves Google Ads, Business Hires Additional Staff

Thu, 30 May 2024 18:09:57 GMT

Third Marble increases conversions by 87.5% for local home theater and tv installation company. With increased business and revenue, the business owner invests in new fleet vehicles, hires employees for the first time, and signs a lease on a new office location for his business.

The Challenge

This Virginia based Home A/V Installation Company connected with Third Marble Marketing seeking help to grow their business. They wanted to use Google Ads to bring in fresh, meaningful leads. Before launching their campaign using our Google Ads Process , our experienced Google Ads management Sales team suggested they invest in our sister company, ReDo Sites to replatform their website, to encourage better traffic and leads from the launch.

The Steps

With the guidance of our Sales team, they decided to invest in creating a new landing page through ReDo Sites. Our sister companies’ designers worked alongside the Home A/V Installation Company to create a landing page that accurately represented their brand while actively creating content to lead to Google Ads success. The business owner was able to write his own content with some direction from our team.

The First Month

Within the first 30 days, they had 8 conversions with a great click-through-rate. Our Account Management and Optimization teams continued to monitor this account with ongoing optimizations. Ongoing Optimizations include A/B testing ads and keywords as well as keeping campaigns up-to-date with Google’s ongoing changes. Our team actively works to keep your campaign bringing in the best traffic.

The Now

Since they started with us, this Home A/V Installation Company was so pleased with their results that they invested more in their monthly budget. With our ongoing care and their investment, their conversions are up 87.5%, the conversion rate is up 44%, and click through rate is up 104%. With increased business and revenue, the business owner has invested in new fleet vehicles, hired employees for the first time, and signed a lease on a new office location for his business.

What could your business do with an 87% increase in business? Are you ready to improve your Google Ads results with a professional management service? Schedule your call with an expert now to discuss how we can help your business!

Case Study - Business Increases Their Conversions by 650%

Thu, 30 May 2024 17:30:16 GMT

Third Marble's Google Ads Management increases a car wrapping & accessories business' conversions by 650% and decreases their cost per lead by 87%.

Third Marble Marketing is here to help small businesses with budgets of all sizes navigate Google Ads. Small businesses are vital to economies and growth across the US. No matter your budget, your location, or your services, our experienced Google Ads team will grow your Google Ads presence. This locally owned and operated Tennessee based car wrapping service was looking to drive new traffic to their business on a small budget. Working alongside our Google Ads team, they’ve seen big wins in their first six months with us.

The First Month

Within the first month, our Account Management team worked alongside our Optimization Specialists to create an effective campaign to drive local traffic & new customers to their car wrapping services. Our Conversion Specialist worked with the client to install effective conversion tracking on their landing page.

The Second Month

With ongoing optimizations in which we monitor and adjust components such as keyword performance, bidding, and ad copy, we increased their leads by 400% while decreasing their cost per lead by 79%.

The Now

We continue to regularly optimize this account and monitor performance in order to drive meaningful traffic to use their budget in the most effective way. Since they started with us, we’ve increased their conversions by 650% and decreased their cost per lead by 87%.

What could your business do with more conversions each month?

Are you ready to see big results with your Google Ads? Connect with Third Marble Marketing to learn more! Schedule your introduction call now!

Free Conversion & SEO Advice for Service Pages

Tue, 20 Feb 2024 20:28:52 GMT

GIVE CUSTOMERS WHAT THEY WANT TO MAKE A BUYING DECISION

The Critical Importance of Service Page Design on Your Website!

Small business owners and managers … the content of your service pages will determine your company’s search engine rankings and success in converting website visitors to paying customers. With those two payoffs, clearly customer-centric service page design is a digital marketing “must”.

So, in this piece we’ll present premier profiles of service pages that deliver what customers seek. The objective is to provide an overview of service pages best practices to help strengthen your internet marketing decisions.

Note: A study by Whitespark reveals that the top Google local organic ranking factor is a

Dedicated Page for Each Service .

What Are Service Pages … and Why You Must Care

Service pages appear on your business website and ideally present a path of information and motivation that leads to the potential of a sale. Your website serves as the stand-in for the “concierge” who greets prospects in person at your place of business ... identifies needs and directs them to appropriate solutions.

The difference, of course, is the absence of a live company representative. So, your service pages must be constructed to invite orderly next steps for your website visitors to identify the details of your offerings … with compelling demonstrations and evidence of how one or another will satisfy their needs.

You’ve heard the term “landing page”. Essentially that’s synonymous with service page meaning where a searcher will land on your website in response to a specific search question. You’ll want to feature a landing page dedicated to each product/service you offer. If you have multiple offerings, you may choose to streamline choices under a dropdown box on your home page.

Here’s an example from the TMM home page.

A click on each listing will bring the site visitor to that offering’s service page.

What Searchers Want to See

Once a service page is visited by a searcher, there are 5 Guiding Principles of design that will help you to maintain visitors' attention and urge further action to explore your solutions to their search. These Guiding Principles really come down to addressing what your visitors want to see.

Here’s a graphic presentation of the results of one study that addresses this issue.

Lesson: Service pages are what 86% of potential customers want to see after landing on your homepage.

Successful Service Page Design … Five Guiding Principles

Here are best-practices to provide buyers with what they need to make purchase decisions.

1. Content Relevant to Their Immediate Need

As noted above, your service pages must be constructed to invite orderly next steps for your website visitors to identify the details of your offerings … with compelling demonstrations and evidence of how one or another will satisfy their needs .

So, don’t skimp on details. Be sure to include:

Who is your customer? This is your ideal customer profile to help visitors know if they are in the right place at the right time. For example, the TMM service page for Local SEO for Small Businesses specifically identifies that it serves the needs of small, local business owners.
Details of your offering(s). Address what your customers can expect when they buy. On the above TMM service page you will see pricing ; no contracts and time expectations to optimize success .
Show your understanding of customer problems.   Again, referencing the above service page, Local search engine optimization for small businesses is very different than optimizing for national advertisers. Searchers need to know that you recognize the distinction and perform accordingly.
Use motivating text. Position your offerings to trigger one or more of the 4 primary drivers of why people buy: save money; save time; make money; peace of mind. Important: Your prospects (as well as you and I) buy your product/service based on what it does … plus how it makes them feel. Appeal to both! Provide the details … example ... (make money) tied to positive feelings they will enjoy (peace of mind).
Why choose you ? Here’s where you need to tell your company’s history, customer-driven philosophy, unique delivery processes and staff competencies.

Don’t be concerned about the volume of your service page content. If you’re successful in winning a prospect’s attention to begin with more substantive information will answer many questions before becoming objections.

2. Visuals

Research reveals that 65 percent of Americans are visual learners. That means as buyers they best retain information by seeing it in images. As a matter of fact, people retain 80 percent of what they see … but only 20 percent of what they read. Lesson: Include screen shots, graphics, photos and videos on your service pages.

Here’s an example of a video on a service page that serves two purposes … a marketing visual plus a customer testimonial. Consider the power of a similar video ... an interview with one of your satisfied customers!

Another Small Business Grown with Google...

3. Appealing to the Eye … a Breeze to Navigate

As discussed above, most buyers seek visual representations of your service page content … not just text. Additionally, people are busy so be sure to address their need for speed. Consider this checklist:

Prominent titles and sub-headings;
Bulleted and highlighted key points;
Short, written paragraphs and sentences with useful information and benefit statements;
Visually attractive and tightly crafted ... margins, bullets, line spacing etc.;
Rapid loading of your service page;
Mobile friendly;
Calls-to-Action (CTAs) options (more on that in a bit).

4. Proof/Evidence of Performance Successes

Two primary sources of proof of your capabilities are industry recognition and customer testimonials .

Here’s an example:

Click here for a sampling of customer testimonials and reviews. Note client emphasis on the 4 major drivers of why people buy.

An added proof of your competencies is to publish frequent blogs/articles that further bolster your image as an industry expert and thought leader.

5. Calls to Action (CTAs)

Give Customers What They Want to Make a Buying Decision.

Both you and your prospects win when a sale is made. So, continually urge “forward motion” to deliver on the opportunity to buy … or satisfy a next step in the decision process. That’s where clear and prominently displayed CTAs come into play.

Provide CTAs that are mindful of the desires of customers.

Here’s a graphic presentation of the results of one study that addresses this issue.

For prospects who are on the fence, offer a free consultation with a dedicated in-house professional. And make sure it’s at the prospect’s convenience … not yours. For example, here are 3 options to choose:

And for the prospect ready to convert to “customerhood” … make that transition a click away.

Takeaways

Give Customers What They Want to Make a Buying Decision . That means your success will be measured by customer-centric, clear, comprehensive, easy to find service pages crafted for each of your products/services … with proof of your competencies coupled with prominent access to CTAs. Above all make sure your service page content helps your prospects to understand what you offer, how you deliver and “what’s in it for them” … save money; save time; make money; peace of mind.

This piece is intended to provide an overview of service pages best practices to help strengthen your internet marketing decisions. It purposely is not written to “get into the weeds”. That said, consider enlisting the aid of a professional firm. There are behind-the-scenes items that need attention such as key word selection and placement, internal links and meta descriptions.

Third Marble stands ready to give you a hand … or an introduction to a professional who can.

Why Third Marble Marketing is Shifting Away from Search Partners

alexh@thirdmarblemarketing.com (Alex Huibsch) — Tue, 20 Feb 2024 18:10:20 GMT

Taking Control

In the fast-paced world of digital marketing, chasing the biggest reach at the lowest cost can be tempting. However, at Third Marble Marketing, we prioritize quality over quantity. That’s why we're moving away from Google Search Partners (GSP) for new accounts and selectively assessing its use for existing campaigns. This allows us to fine-tune your targeting and focus your budget on delivering qualified leads that drive real business growth.

While this might raise some eyebrows, hear us out. Turning off search partners won't be without its repercussions. You may see a shift in campaign metrics, such as increased cost per conversion or a dip in traffic. But trust us, these short-term adjustments pave the way for a far more efficient and impactful campaign in the long run.

So, what exactly are we preventing by taking this stance?

1. Brand Misalignment: Imagine your ad popping up on a website riddled with misinformation or offensive content. Not a good look, right? Adalytics , a platform that records and analyzes digital advertising data, used publicly available data to identify websites within the GSP network. They found countless examples of major brands' ads appearing on inappropriate websites, raising brand safety and reputational risks.

According to Adalytics , one instance entailed a major Fortune 500 brand that had ads being served on “websites such as Breitbart.com, sites containing pirated content, hardcore pornographic sites, and hundreds of putative Iranian websites.” By severing ties with search partners, we regain control over where your ads appear, ensuring they resonate with your brand values and target audience.

2. Dark Web Depths: Have you ever heard of the dark web? It's a hidden underbelly of the internet where your ads could potentially end up, reaching the wrong eyes and tarnishing your brand reputation. Lack of transparency surrounding GSP websites raises brand safety concerns.

As previously stated, ads can appear on questionable websites, including sanctioned entities, pornographic content, and the dark web. By closing this backdoor, we keep your campaigns clear of these murky waters.

3. Quality Over Quantity: Remember that "dip in traffic" we mentioned? Well, it's not about chasing random eyeballs anymore. We're aiming for laser-focused targeting, driving qualified leads who are genuinely interested in your brand. After all, fewer wasted impressions means more valuable conversions.

4. Efficiency Amplified: A tighter, controlled network translates to streamlined campaign management. You'll benefit from clearer data insights, better budget allocation, and greater control over your marketing efforts.

Going Forward

Overall, we understand that change can be unsettling. However, this decision isn't about taking away – it's about giving you something much more valuable: a campaign that ensures your brand reaches the right audience and delivers measurable results.

The lack of transparency that’s all too common with GSP makes it difficult for advertisers to control where their ads appear and maintain brand safety. It also raises concerns about ad effectiveness and potential wasted spending. Advertisers should be aware of the potential risks associated with GSP and advocate for greater transparency from Google. Moreover, they should consider alternative targeting options to ensure brand safety and campaign effectiveness.

At Third Marble Marketing, we're committed to quality, transparency, and taking control of your brand's online presence. This step might seem counterintuitive at first, but trust us, it's the foundation for building a more sustainable and impactful marketing strategy for the future.

Ready to join us on this journey? Get in touch and let's talk about how we can leverage this shift to build your brand's best campaign yet.

The Mystery of the Google Calls: Navigating "Strategists" and Protecting Your Ads

Tue, 20 Feb 2024 18:06:34 GMT

Ever feel like there's a persistent Google shadow stalking your inbox and voicemail? Yeah, those "Google Ads Strategists" calling non-stop. But who are they, and should you trust their advice? Buckle up, fellow advertiser, because we're about to unpack this mystery.

So, who are these "Strategists"?

Turns out, they're not always full-fledged Google employees. Often, they're folks from third-party companies partnered with Google – think Teleperformance or TTEC. Don't let the fancy "@google.com" email addresses fool you. These partners get access to your campaign data, which they use to, well, "strategize".

Are they trying to help?

Maybe, maybe not. Their advice can be helpful, suggesting tweaks to optimize your campaigns. But sometimes, it's more about pushing their agenda. Think upping your budget, signing up for unnecessary services, or switching to risky bidding strategies—not always the best fit for your goals.

What could happen if you listen?

Following blindly could mean a blown budget, ineffective campaigns, and even strained client relationships. Imagine switching to broad match in a niche industry—a recipe for disaster, right?

Navigating the Strategist Maze:

Double-check that email - Look for your Google Ads Customer ID. No ID? No trust.
Beware of the pushy ones - If they're aggressively urging you to act, take a step back.
Know your goals - You're the expert on your business. Don't let anyone pressure you into decisions that don't align with your strategy.
Opt out if needed - Politely request to be put on their "do not contact" list. They can't say no.
Report bad behavior - If they cross the line with harassment, file a complaint with Google Ads Help.

Working with a Google Ads management company?

Great! But remember, they should always prioritize your goals, not their partner's agendas. Be transparent and communicate your concerns if anything feels off. Remember, you're the captain of your ad ship. Stay vigilant, trust your gut, and don't let anyone—strategist or otherwise—steer you off course.

Happy advertising and we hope this helps!

Is Professional Management of Google Local Service Ads Worth It?

katieb@thirdmarblemarketing.com (Katie Bonner) — Tue, 22 Aug 2023 21:01:35 GMT

Is It Worth Paying for Professional Management of your Google Local Service Ads (LSA)? Probably Not…

The newest service for most PPC Management companies is “managing” your Google Local Service Ads (LSA) or at least getting you to add them to your current services. As a Google Ads management company, the big question is, what are they charging for?

In this piece, we’ll explain the difference between LSA and Search Ads … the former requires management effort from you as the business owner, and the latter requires regular optimization and can be better managed by a third-party agency. In our research, the current trend is for larger companies to pay agencies $1,500 per month or more to manage their LSA campaigns.

But what exactly are you paying for a management company to do?

What Are Google Local Service Ads?

LSA: The most significant difference is that Local Services Ads are a pay-per-lead, not a pay-per-click form of advertising. They promote your business on Google and deliver your leads directly via phone and text inquiries through the platform, not your website.

Inside the LSA platform, you can reply to messages, track bookings, dispute bad leads, and manage all your inquiries online with the mobile app to communicate with prospects and customers anytime.

LSA Ads have a higher booking rate because they come with a Google Guarantee, indicating that you have been through their background check and stamped with their seal of approval. They populate ahead of the Search Ads and Organic Results at the top of the screen. For example, when a potential customer searches for “Denver plumber,” the businesses running Local Service Ads appear at the top of the search results as tiles you can click on.

When a searcher turns into a lead by sending a message or calling, your job is to convert that lead into a customer.

Your payoffs:

Increased visibility to potential customers.
Improve your credibility by being a Google Guaranteed business.
You pay only when a lead calls, books, or messages you directly through your ad.
You pay per lead, not per click, an important distinction.

How To Setup LSA Ads

Keep in mind LSA ads aren’t for everyone, currently only certain industries can take advantage of these kinds of ads. In the beginning of LSA ads it was mostly home services, finance, law and real estate that could set them up. Recently Google added on some education, wellness, pet care and human services.

If your business falls into one of these categories and you're ready to start LSA Ads, you can start here to see if your business is eligible.

How to Optimize LSA Ads

We've dabbled in Local Service Ads on behalf of some of our clients, and here's what we've discovered. After the initial setup of your LSA account - there is little to optimize, unlike traditional Google Search Ads. It falls on the person navigating the leads to keep your ads performing. You can improve your ads performance by the following:

Increase your budget if you want more leads. By increasing your budget, you're signaling to Google that you're ready for more.
Increase your service area if you're struggling to get leads and not spending your budget.
Be sure you've selected every service option relevant to your business. (This is where a management company could come in handy - sometimes, services hide in different verticals you wouldn't think to look in.)
Manage your leads. Managing your leads is the most important thing you can do to improve your ads performance (and something an agency likely can't do for you).
Responding to 80% or more of the leads to show Google you're keeping happy clients and actively engaging with the leads they're sending your way. '
Request for a review from customers who booked jobs through the platform. More positive reviews mean happy customers, which means Google shows your ads more.
Managing your leads is the most important way to optimize your ads - google wants to see you actively engaging with leads; if you don't, it won't show your ads as often.

The initial setup requires your participation as the advertiser. That said, the setup is pretty straightforward, and ongoing maintenance and management require active participation from the business. Unlike Search or other Google Ads, there are limited adjustments that need regular ongoing technical optimizations.

Which leads us to question, what are folks paying for to have a company manage these ads? Honestly, we're not sure.

Interested in running LSA Ads but want guidance on managing your account? Third Marble Marketing can help! While we don't see a way to ethically charge you to manage your ads when it all falls on you, we came up with a way to help. Our Local Service Ads Management Training Help Session gives you one-on-one training with one of our experts.

Want to Dominate Page One of Google?

If you're ready to dominate page one of Google, you could combine LSA Ads, Search Ads, and Local SEO into your marketing plans. Showing up in three different places on the page gives you additional opportunities to get a searcher's attention. Whether they notice you're on the page three times or one placement, in particular, jumps out at them, you're seriously increasing your odds of getting that click.

Check out our Local Search Engine Optimization Pricing and our Google Ads Management Pricing to see how we can help you dominate page one of Google.

Your LSAs give users what they want. In response to their searches, you want to be at the top of the list quickly. Local Service Ads attract leads ready to become paying customers, making them a highly cost-effective, efficient, and successful game plan to market your business locally.

The initial setup and optimization require your participation as the advertiser. The setup is easy, and your sales team should handle the ongoing management. Unlike Google Search Ads, there are limited adjustments that need regular ongoing attention. Small businesses usually enjoy affordable lead generation with minimal management time commitment.

Next Step: We understand that navigating Google products, including LSAs, can be frustrating. That's why our team is now offering one-on-one help sessions to help you get more business from Google. Ready to start Local Service Ads or reconsider your current approach?

Click here and let us show you how to manage LSAs on your own.

Entity SEO - The Future of Content Ranking

katieb@thirdmarblemarketing.com (Katie Bonner) — Fri, 28 Jul 2023 20:19:46 GMT

The future of search engines in regard to choosing what content to rank and determining its meaning.

In this article, we won’t get too “deep into the weeds”. This article will provide an overview of entity SEO developments in the context of strengthening your internet marketing decisions.

What is Entity SEO … And Why You Need to Care

When it comes to Google’s search engine, the sole constant is change! And the latest change is the introduction of “entity SEO” which alters the breadth of search criteria from what was once primarily driven by the specific meaning of keywords.

Entity SEO refers to Google’s ability to understand things … no longer performing as just a simple keyword detection algorithm looking at individual pages in isolation. It's also looking at the overall theme or topic of your website.

Entity SEO expands Google’s searches to include virtually any pages it finds that relates to a user’s inquiry. Typically, an entity is a person, place, or thing, but ideas and concepts can also be included. Responses to a user are further enhanced by tracking evidence of what the user deemed of interest in past searches.

So, the sole criterion is not whether the exact search term appears on the page. Google searches for relative entities on your page and links these entities to related entities throughout your entire site. That means creating more comprehensive and expansive content to improve your rankings.

Become an Authority to Enjoy More Leads & Conversions

The importance to digital marketers is that when users often or consistently interact with specific content, the website that delivers that data will become recognized as an authority on that topic. Being recognized as the authority means casting a broader net to drive traffic to your website.

Now Google can anticipate desirable content based on the user activity they track. Three major criteria are:

The frequency and amount of search activity regarding a topic.
The degree users exhibit signs of extended engagement with the topic and time on the website.
Your demonstrated level of focus on the topic … broad, narrow, in-depth.

Google will begin to rely on your site based on positive user visits coupled with evidence search results satisfaction. That underscores the critical nature of user engagement. Frequent engagement deficiencies are likely to negatively affect your page's ranking. Making up for that loss is time-consuming and expensive.

Relevant Content is King

The solution is to consistently deliver high-quality, relevant content on a specific topic that drives positive user engagement. Doing so reinforces your site as an authority on that subject in Google’s eyes and results in a boost in search rankings.

Note: Google checks the accuracy of the factual foundations of published content. In developing your content, it is critical to research, fact-check and only cite reputable sources to ensure your credibility as an authority .

Additionally, Google is “conscious” of the consistency of your content as it relates to the topic for which you have achieved authority status. Inconsistent content, even if it’s related to your topic as an expert, can distort the unique value of your website and endanger your rankings.

Remember … your objective is quality of content, not quantity. Only include content that supports your area of expertise. Too much unfocused content will lessen your stature as a topical authority and injure your rankings.

Google will assess the worth of new content as it relates to your primary expertise. So, satisfy that function by tying new entries to your acknowledged proficiency as an authority.

Takeaways

As promised, this piece is not to develop entity SEO technical competence. Rather it is to provide you with foundational knowledge of major Google search engine developments and how it affects your internet marketing strategy decision-making.

In the event you have in-house SEO staff expertise, the foregoing can be a prompt for discussion of how your company is or will meet evolving search challenges.

If you are like most small businesses, it’s unlikely that you have an on-site digital resource. Not to worry ...

Our experts are ready to talk with you about your SEO or Google Ads efforts, schedule your call today!

Understanding SERPs & How it Can Grow Your Business

katieb@thirdmarblemarketing.com (Katie Bonner) — Fri, 28 Jul 2023 18:30:40 GMT

As ever, your internet marketing objective is to rank high on Google Search Page 1. So, you may employ one or the other … Google Ads or SEO (search engine optimization) … in your aggressive efforts to position your offerings to be accepted by searchers as superior to your competitors.

In this article, learn how to turbocharge your digital marketing success by understanding SERP (Search Engine Results Page) and its role in magnifying your Google Search rankings. SERP is the page that a search engine exhibits after a user submits a search inquiry.

As stated above, digital marketers seeking SERP dominance typically engage Google Ads or SEO. So, let’s look at a recap of each and then talk through the synergy created when both are employed.

SEO & SERP

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) are the efforts to get your webpages to the top of the SERP in response to searchers’ inquiries relative to the content of each webpage.

Professionally and successfully designed and implemented, SEO addresses the following for each webpage:

Tasks

Establish focused keywords for each page.
Optimize Titles, Descriptions, H-Tags, Alt-Tags, and other on page elements.
Page check for duplicate content.
If relevant - Add FAQ Schema.
Update keyword strategy as needed.
Edit Google snippets to improve click through rates.
Edit content for readability scores and keyword density.

Linking

Create outbound links to high authority, non competitive websites.
Use internal backlinks to funnel 5-10 pages to a Primary Target Page.
After pages are optimized, create backlinks to boost the Domain Authority of the Primary Target Page.

So, SEO is the process of optimizing a website to rank high on SERPs ... while the SERP is the actual page that the search engine displays with the results. You win with search engines that are persuaded to tout your content as the best solution to users’ problems.

Organic SEO & Paid Search Advertising

In addition to organic search results, SERPs usually include paid search and pay-per-click (PPC) ads. So, let’s start with a recap of organic search results … along with a review of paid search and PPC ads in lead generation.

Organic SEO is designed to improve your website's rankings in unpaid search results on search engines. Keyword research, link building, content creation, and accelerating page load time are optimized to gain higher placement in SERPs.

Pay-Per-Click (PPC) is the most common choice of paying to advertise on a search engine to elevate placement of your ads on SERPs. Your objective is to generate the maximum number of relevant clicks possible with the intent to drive traffic to your site. To do that, you need to make sure your ads focus on the keywords that are most likely to deliver more customers.

When a user/searcher enters a term into a search engine like Google, your company will have the opportunity to bid on boosting the “visibility level” your advertisements are displayed on the SERP. It doesn’t cost anything for the ad to display on the page, but it does cost when someone clicks on the ad … hence the commonly used name “Pay-Per-Click.”

The company that bids the highest price for the click usually gets placed at the top of the page. And the top position gets the highest number of clicks.

Note: As a Google Ads Beta Testing Agency , we usually know the changes Google is going to make before everyone else. This allows us to stay on top of the latest algorithms and improve our processes constantly to get our clients the best possible Google results for the lowest possible price.

The Times They Are A’Changin’!

Referred to as the “strategic search revolution”, SERP visibility is increasingly complex and volatile. That means reliance on only one or another, SEO or PPC, is less likely to yield superior rankings. Reports are that organic search alone faces an uphill battle against alternative SERP features, and paid listings seem to be losing ground as well.

The key is to recognize and accept that ranking high on SERPs is no longer an “either/or” - paid or organic choice. Your answer is to initiate a two-tiered marketing strategy that includes both SEO and PPC. This will create synergy to escalate the likelihood of your webpages being recognized and featured in SERP searches.

So, a place to start … a four-point checklist to meet the challenges of the ongoing SERP transformation. Note: This is not a blueprint for a DIY project. More on that relief in a bit.

Four Point Checklist

Know your audience. Keywords research is critical to meet searchers where they seek help.
Identify repetitive inquiry patterns of searchers.
Survey your competition, e.g., webpages that get top billing in SERPs.
Are you responding to what’s being asked, in the context of the user’s inquiry?

Once you’ve completed the above self-examination … execute appropriately with your newfound knowledge.

On The Subject of Execution

Now your choices are do-it-yourself or invest in a third-party seasoned service provider for assistance. It is likely that you are already wearing several hats as a business owner/manager. Adding yet another marketing responsibility is probably not an attractive option.

Current and prospective TMM customers are urged to employ both organic and Google Ads strategies.

By hiring a TMM Team of experts to enable both your SEO and Google Ads management, you will ensure that your results are always accurate and current with all major Google updates as well as consistent success in superior ranking on SERPs.

Here’s what you can expect when you hire Third Marble. You’ll be assigned a dedicated team of Google Ads and SEO experts to apply our affordable, proven process to your businesses Google Ads and SEO efforts. The objective … drive targeted traffic to your website to enhance your SERP rankings.

Whether you have a Local, National, or E-commerce business TMM will apply our process to your website to drive traffic, leads, and sales. You’ll enjoy the benefits of processes streamlined for success over fourteen years by TMM.

Schedule a FREE Introductory Call Today!

Content Strategies TO Improve Your Local SEO Efforts & Conversion Rates

katieb@thirdmarblemarketing.com (Katie Bonner) — Fri, 28 Apr 2023 15:29:28 GMT

Embracing an E-E-A-T Strategy & Position Yourself as an Expert in Your Field

A 2022 survey reveals 78% of consumers search for local business info online at least once a week. So, if you have a business that serves a particular town or area, local search engine optimization (Local SEO) is essential to make sure consumers can find you easily … and in preference to your competition.

The solution, optimize your site’s content to outshine your competitors’ rankings.

What is E-E-A-T & How it Affects Your Google Rankings

Peak optimization of your website will be earned by implementing content consistent with the key factors Google’s automated systems employ to rank great content. Superior content demonstrates optimum adherence to the acronym E-E-A-T … Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness.

Google introduced E-E-A-T late last year in response to feedback from its worldwide network of third-party Search Quality Raters whose charter is to recommend changes to make Search more useful to internet seekers.

Google systems identify relevant content and prioritize which seems most helpful. E-E-A-T signals factor into how Google evaluates the overall quality of a web page and subsequently influences how pages will rank in search results … with a singular emphasis on demonstrated quality design and content. Websites that deliver a high-quality customer experience are rewarded with high-impact rankings.

It is absolutely clear … CONTENT RULES!

Learn the E-E-A-T ground rules, and claim your FREE Interactive, Local SEO Marketing Plan template

Your Local SEO & E-E-A-T Support Team

To employ E-E-A-T and maximize your core small business Local SEO strategy requires a collaborative effort by experts in three professional disciplines … business decision-maker, Local SEO specialist and website administrator. Properly executed by this Support Team, you’ll enjoy an enhanced likelihood of rankings superior to your competitors.

As with nearly all small businesses, it’s not likely that you will have all three experts on staff. Likewise, you probably lack the time or experience to tackle this challenge as a DIY project. The best approach is for you, as the decision-maker, to “partner” with a Local SEO service and website administrator.

Ideally, the “quarterback” for this effort is your Local SEO firm. Third Marble performs the technical SEO functions, plus often makes content requests from clients to continually improve their SEO strategy.

The 4 Faces of E-E-A-T

Below are lists of Local SEO tactics that may be incorporated into an E-E-A-T strategy. Of course, your Local SEO marketing plan may not include content generation. Try using this article to start as an outline for content yourself or for a copywriter.

Experience

Customers’ perception
Local reviews
Google Business Profile posts
Employee bios
Customer photos
Public reputation
Delivers quality products & service
Years of service

Expertise

Demonstrated competence
Content on local service pages
Blog posts by industry experts
Content perceived as valuable

Authoritativeness

Recognized thought leadership
Citations
Community involvement
Knowledge sharing

Trustworthiness

History of positive customer reviews
Third-party website reviews
Google Business Profile reviews
Reliable, high quality

As you and your Support Team develop your Local SEO tactics, it’s helpful to have a sense for Google’s “thinking” in rewarding content that meets the highest standards of quality that improve your placement on search engine results pages (SERPs). Here’s a rundown to help you and your Support Team execute content for each of the letters in the E-E-A-T acronym.

Experience: Google prefers reports of first-hand and personal experiences when evaluating content. That means reviews by actual users or those demonstrating familiarity with a product or service are deemed higher priorities than those with no such awareness.

Expertise: Google examines your content to determine how it compares to other website pages that deal with the same subject. Your job is to develop content that demonstrates a superior level of expertise in your professional field.

Authoritativeness: Authority is about your reputation as perceived primarily by other experts and industry influencers in your line of work. Authoritative sites are those that have a proven history of being the preferred go-to information resource re a topic or series of related subjects that relate to a specific area of expertise. Protecting your internet reputation is critical to earn trust from online searchers.

Trustworthiness: Trustworthiness relates to your specific area of expertise. It is a key assessment of the validity, accuracy, and uniqueness of your content. Trustworthiness is demonstrated when industry leaders share a consensus that the content author/researcher/creator is acknowledged as a subject matter expert and thought leader.

Google E-E-A-T Published Standards for Search Quality Raters Include:

Determine the author of content/owner of website domain
Research the E-E-A-T history of content authors
Rate the quality of the page and its content
Determine what constitutes high-quality and low-quality content
Identify types of domains or pages that require high levels of E-E-A-T to rank high
Compare the mobile/desktop experience of a website
Pinpoint pages, page designs or page usability that could cause user’s distress
Score domains and pages using a “Fully Meets User Needs” to “Fails to Meet User Needs” scale

Implementing E-E-A-T in Your Local SEO Plan

Now it’s time to share input and feedback regarding content audits, edits and additions from all three Support Team players to create your tactical items as illustrated in the matrix below. The next step is to implement your E-E-A-T Local SEO Marketing Plan together with your Local SEO and web administrator providers.

The key to success will be your creation and adherence to an ongoing action plan to ensure execution, timeliness, responsibility and accountability for results.

Click below for your TMM gift - your customizable E-E-A-T … Local SEO Marketing Plan template.

Turbo-charge employment of E-E-A-T rich content and enjoy an enhanced status in Google rankings superior to your competitors. Best way to do that is add your talent as the business decision maker to the professional expertise of a proven Local SEO firm coupled with a capable website administrator.

Third Marble invites you to appoint us to facilitate this effort … as your Local SEO firm to save you time and ensure appropriate execution of your internet marketing. TMM has a successful history performing the technical SEO functions, plus requesting content from clients to refine and continually improve their SEO strategy. Additionally, TMM has extensively collaborated with website administrators and maintains strategic partnerships with many as resources for small businesses that need a referral.

Clearly, Google will continue to launch enhancements that improve the quality and outcomes of Google Searches for website visitors. The key for online marketers is to be at the tip of the learning curve as these changes are rolled out. TMM, as a Google Partner is privileged to current and anticipated refinements. That means we can keep your digital marketing on the cutting edge of conversion success.

Ready to learn more about Third Marble's award-winning SEO services?

Schedule a free call with one of our experts today!

HVAC Companies - How An SEO Marketing Strategy Can Increase Your Business

Thu, 30 Mar 2023 16:34:31 GMT

Increase HVAC Leads & Digital Marketing Efforts With HVAC SEO

What is HVAC SEO and Why You Need to Care?

HVAC SEO is a search engine optimization (SEO) strategy that can be used to enhance the visibility of your business in search results on Google ... the top-ranked search engine of choice sporting an 84% market share.

Here’s your payoff for ranking high on Google searches. Nearly 50% of all Google searches are made by people looking for a local product or service. According to a 2022 survey, 78% of consumers search for local business info online at least once a week ... equal to nearly half of all Google searches.

Your HVAC business serves a particular geographic area ... namely local. That means it is essential that you make it easy for consumers to find you. The solution: Optimize your internet visibility to achieve better rankings than your competitors. Ignore doing so and you’ll miss out on seekers of your service plus the opportunity to convert site visits to revenue.

Note: It is likely that you don’t have on staff an SEO expert with proven success experience. It is also probable that your HVAC responsibilities dominate your professional time. That means DIY is not an option. That said, the balance of this article is to inform you regarding the process of Local SEO to help you engage a capable Local SEO provider.

Local HVAC SEO ... A Process, Not An Event

Success with Local SEO is realized only by employing a long-term digital marketing strategy consistently nurtured over time. A physical fitness analogy would be your commitment to weight loss or muscle strengthening goal. One visit to the gym (event) will not yield results. Regularly scheduled workouts deliver incremental progress to your ultimate objective (process).

Similarly, a single Local SEO effort is not the answer. An expert Local SEO company will initiate, work and rework your SEO strategies to yield long term, sustained success in superior lead generation.

8 SEO Tips to Improve Your HVAC SEO Marketing Strategy

Your HVAC Customers are Local

There is a difference between National SEO and local SEO. The former targets selected keywords and phrases that relate to a product or service … without regard to the geographical location of providers. In contrast, Local SEO targets similar keywords and phrases with the objective to search for HVAC companies in the consumers’ local area. This emphasis on local area searches underscores your need to ensure your business name, address and phone number (known as your NAP) are consistent across all your online profiles, e.g., your Google Business Profile, website, Facebook, Yelp, etc. Listings on multiple credible internet sites prompts Google to recognize that your HVAC business as trusted and legitimate.

2. Quality Content is King

High quality content is what your HVAC prospects want to read … helpful content perceived as informative plus answers Google searchers’ questions. Deliver original, engaging and relevant content and enjoy enhanced website traffic … along with a boost in your Google search rankings, engagement and conversions of visitors to paying customers. An expert Local SEO company will help identify guidelines to improve your content and/or refer you to competent content writers.

Read this article that emphasizes Google’s new content update and how it will affect your Local SEO rankings -

Guiding Principle: First, Serve Searchers … Not Rankings

3. Keywords Rule

Keywords are words and phrases that come to mind when HVAC prospects are seeking online Google search information. To get top placement on Google Page One, you must prove to Google that you’re not a spammer and you are the most relevant website for a particular keyword phrase. If you understand that point, you’re already ahead of most of your competitors.

Here’s a wider look at the Third Marble's approach to keyword strategy.

4. Superior User Experience a Must

As is the case with Third Marble, Local SEO expert companies typically don’t provide website development services. SEO work is done primarily on the backend of the website with emphasis on Google Business Profile and citation building. In combined effort with your website developer, your Local SEO expert provider must work to ensure your website is optimized to meet the technical requirements of Google and improve your organic rankings. Note: Third Marble can provide you with a sizeable list of web developers that have a successful history of website improvement and optimization.

5. Website Searches Optimized for Mobile Searchers

Google uses a mobile-first indexing algorithm in response to more than 50% of Google searches are conducted via smartphones. This means having a mobile-friendly website designed and optimized for hand-held devices is a must.

6. Your HVAC Reputation Defines You

Your online business reputation is driven by feedback and reviews from website visitors and customers. It’s estimated that 90% of people won’t make a purchasing decision without first seeking reviews. HVAC companies with the most superior reviews will “carry the day” in consumer acceptance. Your job is to proactively request feedback, maintain high visibility by constantly posting on your website, Google Business Profile and other sites like Yelp and HomeAdvisor. Make sure to respond to every review … whether good or not-so-good. With frequent review postings, you’ll reinforce your reputation with consumers as a popular, responsive, trustworthy business.

Click here for an example of the power of customer reviews.

7. Local SEO Strategy – Responses to Google Changes

Google makes over 400 changes to its algorithms every year. A capable Local SEO expert provider will stay on top of changes to constantly work to improve your local HVAC company organic rankings.

Note: Third Marble, as a Google Partner is privileged to current and anticipated refinements. That means we keep your Local SEO and digital marketing on the cutting edge of conversion success.

8. Business Citations Boost HVAC SEO Rankings

Be sure to improve your HVAC SEO rankings by maintaining an ongoing commitment to citation building. That means listing your business on a variety of internet platforms to help boost your rankings on Google Maps and Google Page One. The more visibility you project on sites such as social media, Yelp, Angi, etc., delivers more organic search results, increased website traffic and likely conversion of visitors to paying customers.

Conclusions & Next Steps

Clearly, there is much that Google has initiated, and will continue to update … enhancements that improve the quality and outcomes of Google Searches for website visitors. The key for you as an HVAC online marketer is to be immediately responsive as these changes are rolled out.

A focused, continuing effort to perfect your Local SEO is critical.

By hiring your Team of Third Marble Google experts, you’re ensured that each of the above 8 Critical Issues for Success are always in sync to maximize your Local SEO results.

GOOGLE … ON THE CUTTING EDGE TO IMPROVE LOCAL SEO

Wed, 01 Mar 2023 15:29:02 GMT

GOOGLE … ON THE CUTTING EDGE TO IMPROVE LOCAL SEO

Third Marble Heads-up for Small Business Owners & Marketing Managers

When you want to find a restaurant or nearby car repair shop, what do you do? Right, you search for it online. Likewise, when your prospects and customers are seeking geographically close (local) offerings like yours … they do the same.

For this article, it’s key to recognize that the hands-down search engine of choice is Google with an 84% market share . That means to successfully execute your digital marketing strategy, you must employ advancements in Google technology that enhance local searches.

As a Google Partner, Third Marble enjoys advance notice about future updates ... valuable foresight to “get a jump” on helping our clients maintain superior search rankings. Read on about the latest Google announcement, the introduction of Bard – an experimental artificial intelligence service that will affect Local SEO action-plans.

Introducing Bard

Bard promises to add a whole new dimension to Google Search. While still in the experimental stage, this AI technology is designed to answer search questions. In Google’s words … “it draws information from the web to provide fresh, high-quality responses.” The net result for searchers is a broader range of choice in answer to info they are seeking.

An analogy to a recent AI application that’s currently in the news, ChatGPT, offers an operational comparison to Bard. ChatGPT recognizes broad patterns of text harvested from the internet and creates content in answer to a user’s prompt. For example, you can tell it to “Write me a poem”, and when it does, further instruct it to “Make it more exciting”. ChatGPT will continue to respond with as much detail as requested.

Similarly, Bard will recognize vast amounts of data from the internet that will satisfy a Google Search request. Sundar Pichai CEO of Google writes of Google’s commitment to create entirely new ways to engage with information from languages and images to video and audio … starting with Search. Bard can turn information requests into useful knowledge more efficiently and accelerate users’ ability to get to the heart of what they’re looking for and smooth the way for decision-making.

According to Pichai, the major driver for this technology is … “increasingly, people are turning to Google for deeper insights and understanding”. That’s in contrast to a time when people thought of Google only for quick factual answers.

AI is particularly valuable for questions that have no one right answer. For example, you can ask Bard to compare the pros and cons of buying an electric car versus a gasoline powered vehicle. In response, Search will distill multiple perspectives to quickly learn more from the internet … like blogs from automotive experts, purchasers of electric vehicles who are pleased and those who switched back to traditionally powered cars.

As mentioned above, Bard is at an experimental stage. In February Google will start onboarding individual developers, creators and enterprises to conduct a “shakedown cruise” of Bard as a preface to a broader launch soon.

Note: For readers not yet signed up for TMM’s Local SEO service or want to know more, click here for Local SEO … The Third Marble Way.

The TMM team is on top of every new algorithm update from Google to ensure our customers place high on Google Search. To put that in perspective … updates in 2022 exceeded 400!

Case Study - Medical Spa Increases Leads by 2000%

Thu, 02 Feb 2023 18:51:50 GMT

Our Medical Spa client decreased their cost per conversion by 50%, their average cost per click by 11%, increased their click through rates by 97%, and their conversions have increased by over 2000% after working with Third Marble for five years!

The Challenge

This Wisconsin-based Med Spa connected with Third Marble Marketing for help with increasing ad traffic and bringing in cost effective leads. Med Spas provide vital services to their clients. Google Ads changing policies can prove challenging for Med Spas, but our Google Ads team stays up-to-date on all the latest Google trends and changes so that your ads and your business continue to thrive and reach new audiences.

The Steps

Using our well-honed Google Ads process alongside our team of talented and knowledgeable Account Managers, we created location-driven Search campaigns. Each campaign featured A/B testing of ads to identify which ads brought in the best leads. Using our experienced knowledge of keywords, we built out ad groups that could best serve the services they wanted to highlight in the locations they wanted to target.

The First Month

Within the first month we were bringing leads with a solid cost per lead, cost per click, and click through rate. During this period, we performed regular optimizations to ensure that we could help get these ads running and bring in meaningful data.

The Now

Since this Med Spa started working with Third Marble Marketing five years ago, our results have brought in such great results that they’ve continued to invest more into their Google Ads. With a higher investment, they’ve received a higher return. Since they started, their cost per conversion has decreased by 50%, their average cost per click has decreased by 11%, their click through rates have increased by 97%, and their conversions have increased by over 2000%!

What could your business do with more conversions each month?

Are you ready to invest in your business with expert Google Ads support? Schedule your introduction all today.

Can I Use ChatGPT Content on my Website?

chris@thirdmarblemarketing.com (Chris Fawcett) — Mon, 30 Jan 2023 11:45:03 GMT

ChatGPT Generated Content is a Combination of Other People's Work, So You Might Expose Your Business to Trademark and Copyright Infringement Issues.

is the content produced by chatgpt copyright protected?

The content produced by ChatGPT is not automatically protected by copyright. However, if the content is original and created by a human, it may be eligible for copyright protection. It is important to note that the copyright status of any text generated by a machine learning model like ChatGPT would be determined by the specific circumstances of its creation, including the inputs provided to the model and the extent to which any human authorship can be demonstrated. Additionally, it is important to respect any third-party rights, such as trademark or other intellectual property rights, in any content generated by ChatGPT.

can I copy anything chatgpt produces to a website and not worry about trademark or copyright issues?

It is not advisable to copy anything produced by ChatGPT to a website without first determining whether it would infringe on any trademark or copyright rights. It is important to respect any third-party rights, such as trademark or other intellectual property rights, in any content generated by ChatGPT.

Additionally, it's important to note that text generated by a machine learning model like ChatGPT may be protected by copyright in certain circumstances. So, it's better to check with a legal professional before using the content for any commercial purposes.

In general, it's always a good idea to get permission or a license from the rights holder before using copyrighted content, and to credit the source of the content.

How do I know if the content produced by chatgpt was produced by a human, or by a machine?

It can be difficult to determine whether the content produced by ChatGPT was created by a human or by the machine, as the model is trained on a large dataset of text written by humans, and its output can be similar to human-written text in many cases. However, there are a few clues that can help distinguish machine-generated text from text written by a human.

One way to determine whether the content was produced by a machine is to look for patterns or repetition in the text that would be unlikely to occur in human-written text. For example, machine-generated text may repeat phrases or sentences, or use overly formal or stilted language.

Another way to check if the text was written by a human or machine is to check the source of the text. If the text came from a website that specializes in machine-generated text, then it is most likely machine-generated text.

You could also perform a quick online search of the text to see if it matches other content that already exists online, which could indicate that it was machine-generated.

Ultimately, it's important to remember that machine-generated text can be similar to human-written text in many cases, so it may not always be possible to determine with certainty whether a piece of text was produced by a human or a machine.

Can I see the source of the content produced by chatgpt?

The source of the content produced by ChatGPT is the large dataset of text it was trained on. This dataset contains a variety of text from various sources, such as books, articles, and websites. The dataset is proprietary, so it is not publicly available, and the specific sources of the text within the dataset are not typically disclosed.

It's worth noting that ChatGPT is a machine learning model that generates text based on patterns it has learned from the training dataset, so it doesn't "remember" the exact source of the text it generates. Therefore, it is not possible to see the specific source of the text produced by ChatGPT.

It's also important to remember that the text generated by ChatGPT can be similar to text found in various sources, and it can be hard to determine if the text generated by ChatGPT came from a specific source or not.

What is the legal liability of using chatgpt content publicly without claiming he source of the information correctly?

The legal liability of using content produced by ChatGPT publicly without correctly identifying the source of the information can depend on a variety of factors, including the specific content in question and the way in which it is used.

In general, it's important to respect any third-party rights, such as trademark or other intellectual property rights, in any content generated by ChatGPT. If the content produced by ChatGPT is similar to existing copyrighted material, using it publicly without permission or a valid license could result in a copyright infringement claim.

Additionally, if the text generated by ChatGPT is being used for commercial purposes, it's important to ensure that it does not infringe any trademark rights and that any use of the text does not mislead or deceive consumers.

It's also important to note that failure to attribute the source of the information correctly can be considered as plagiarism, particularly if it's being used in an academic or scholarly setting.

It's always a good idea to consult with a legal professional before using any content generated by ChatGPT, especially if it will be used publicly or for commercial purposes, in order to ensure compliance with applicable laws and to minimize potential legal liability.

Case Study - How Your Website Hosting Can Affect Your Google Ads Results

Fri, 27 Jan 2023 16:44:08 GMT

Case Study - How Your Website Hosting Can Affect Your Google Ads Results

The Challenge

When this Wood Restoration Specialist connected with Third Marble Marketing, their goal was to increase traffic to their website with more clicks at less cost. Our team quickly realized that their landing page wasn’t built with Google Ads in mind. Working alongside helpful recommendations from our Ads Management team, the Wood Restoration Specialist invested in help from our Landing Page Specialist .

The Steps

When they first started, we used our well-honed, data-driven Google Ads Process. Our Optimization Team built out a geocentric campaign while effectively using A/B testing to create ads and keywords that brought in the best traffic. The Ads Management team actively communicated with the Wood Restoration Specialist to explain the results and continue meeting new goals.

The First Month

Within the first month, we help the Wood Restoration Specialist bring in a high click through rate (CTR) alongside a solid cost per click (CPC).

The First Three Months

Within the first three months, with ongoing support and attention from our Optimization Team and Ads Management team, we raised their CTR by 1.42% while lowering their CPC by 15%. We reached the client’s goal of more traffic at a lower cost.

The Redo Site

At the suggestion of our Ads Management team, the Wood Restoration Specialist signed up for hep from our Landing Page Specialist . Working alongside the client, we built a landing page that effectively works with Google Ads to bring in the best and most relevant traffic. Within two months of launching their Redo Site, we decreased their CPC by 29% while increasing their CTR.

What could you business do with a faster website and lower cost per click? Third Marble Marketing offers a wide range of services to help you get the most out of Google Ads. Schedule an intro call today to learn how we can help you!

UTM Codes & How They Can Help Track Digital Traffic

Fri, 27 Jan 2023 16:16:52 GMT

SMALL BUSINESS OWNERS & MARKETING MANAGERS

UTM Codes … Your Key to Better Tracking Digital Marketing Results

This month’s article offers a change of pace as it doesn’t directly speak to the SEO and Google Ads services that Third Marble delivers to small businesses.

This piece is intended to underscore the use of UTM codes to fine-tune tracking your marketing ROI across other marketing channels. That’s accomplished by accessing information to assess the specifics of where your campaigns are most effective … e.g., social media posts, organic traffic, video ads, email blasts, etc. Additionally, if you run different versions of a campaign on several platforms, you can compare results to gauge relative effectiveness.

You might be publishing hundreds of new links daily. UTM codes help you track the performance of each of those links so you can  see where your traffic is coming from.

The Acronym … UTM

UTM is the acronym for Urchin Tracking Module. So much for definition. Now let’s talk about what UTMs are and how they will help maximize success in your digital promotional efforts.

UTMs are parameters you can add to a campaign link. When a visitor clicks on the link, the parameter-data are sent to Google Analytics and recorded in Campaigns reports. That means you learn how many clicks specific links are generating and how visitors interact with your website. Here’s an example of what that may look like.

Original URL Link

https://www.thirdmarblemarketing.com/new-google-ad-service-level-plans-for-the-new-year

UTM Parameters Appended to Original URL Link

utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=servicearticle&utm_campaign=content promotion

The 5 UTM Parameters

There are 5 parameters necessary to create UTM codes.

Campaign Source: Platform (or vendor) where the traffic originates, e.g., Facebook or your newsletter.
Campaign Medium: Such as: Cost Per Click (CPC), social media, affiliate, or QR code.
Campaign Term: Mainly to track your keywords during a paid Google Ads campaign and/or your display ad campaigns to identify characteristics of your audience.
Campaign Content: This is a useful metric in A/B testing ads as well as to differentiate links that point to the same URL.
Campaign Name: Identifies your campaign.

Quick-Start Using Google’s URL Builder

Note: To create UTM parameters for your links, a real time-saver to accelerate your campaign tracking is to use Google’s URL Builder.

Links to websites : Use the  Campaign URL Builder on the Google Analytics Demos & Tools  site.

Android-app ads : Use the  Google Play URL Builder .

Here’s a screenshot of the info you’ll need to set up your URLs.

Access Your Custom-Campaign Data Reports

Once you initiate one or more campaigns that include UTM parameters, you’ll want to gauge the relative effectiveness of your efforts.

To see the Campaigns reports:

Key Takeaways

You need to use UTMs to understand how effective your marketing is by providing detailed information about where your campaign(s) traffic comes from ... plus which promotions drive traffic and most importantly revenue. With the insights you gain from employing UTM parameters, you’ll enjoy a treasure trove of behavioral data to boost sales and refine your overall marketing strategy and expenses.

When you use UTM parameters for tracking your campaigns, we’d very much like to hear from you about your results and experiences with this powerful application of marketing technology.

New Google Ad Service Level Plans for the New Year

Thu, 22 Dec 2022 18:26:21 GMT

Maximize Your Marketing Budget to Maximize Your ROI

You know that marketing planning, budgeting and execution is not a one-size-fits-all proposition. What matters is to capitalize on your visibility, drive traffic to your website and convert visitors to buyers. Those objectives are best realized by choosing a level of marketing service that dovetails with your marketing budget and is consistent with your preference for hands-on professional help.

That is the reason Third Marble developed … and now proudly introduces

3 New Service Level Plans … each calculated to accommodate your specific needs.

Starter Plan: (Good choice for budgets $300 to $6K per month)
Designed for small/local businesses with a modest budget seeking to increase sales with the help of email support from TMM’s customer service line and support team.
Growth Plan: (Great choice for budgets up to $20K per month)
For businesses with a moderate budget that includes monthly consultations with an assigned Account Manager
Partner Plan: (Excellent choice for budgets up to $50K per month)
Ideal for larger, seasoned businesses such as e-commerce, national advertisers or franchisors who want weekly consultations with a dedicated Senior Account Manager.

Here’s a quick summary of the specifics for each Service Level Plan.

4 Simple, Fast & Easy Steps to Get Started

Step 1:

Click here to get the ball rolling.

Step 2:

Schedule your Virtual Onboarding Meeting with your Onboarding Manager. During you Virtual Onboarding Meeting (a Google Meet face to face meeting) your Onboarding Manager will:

Collect Credit Card Information for Third Marble Invoicing
Get access or Create New Google Ads Account
Review Campaign Details
Monthly budget, target geography, type of campaign, product, or services you want us to advertise
Help you select your Service Level Plan
Schedule an Initial Strategy Call
Schedule a Conversion Specialist Call

Step 3:

Two days after your Onboarding Meeting, an Account Manager or Support Team member will conduct your Initial Strategy Call (a Google Meet face to face meeting). Your meeting will entail:

Review Ads & Turn Ads On (new Google Ads account)
or if you have existing Google Ads account (an account that was already running that we are taking over)
Review Optimization Team Recommendations
Turn Ads On
Landing Page Review
Check out our blog post on high-converting landing pages
Review of What’s Included with Your Selected Service Level Plan
Discuss Campaign Goals
General Q&A

Step 4:

Three days after your Onboarding meeting, during you Conversion Specialist Call the Conversion Specialist will:

Assist you with installing codes and setting up your conversions, so you know how many calls, form fills, or purchases result from your Google Ads.

What You Can Expect From Us

Regular optimization and daily monitoring of your account;
A monthly invoice is automatically processed on your credit card;
A monthly performance report from reports@thirdmarblemarketing.com, compiling all your account data from the previous month;
Prompt email response! Email is the best way to communicate with us, and we will get back to you in one business day.

Regardless of the Service Level Plan you choose … you enjoy the freedom of no contract, plus flexibility to upgrade or downgrade your plan at any time.

Are you ready to see how Google Ads and your Service Level Plan can increase the steady flow and quality of your leads?

Third Marble is ready to help! Schedule an Introduction call today!

Case Study - Local Plumbers Hire More Staff as a Result of Their Google Ads Success

Thu, 01 Dec 2022 19:54:13 GMT

The Challenge

This Maryland-based Plumbing Company came to Third Marble Marketing looking for help with their SEO. After we successfully generated SEO traffic, they asked us to help with their Google Ads. They were struggling to get Google Ads to work for them. Since they started with us, this locally owned and operated Plumbing Company has grown significantly. While building Google Ads traffic for small businesses, sometimes the data doesn’t clearly show the whole story!

The Steps

Using our Google Ads Management Process , we built a campaign targeting their service area. We implemented A/B testing and frequent optimization to find the best ads and keywords that bring in meaningful conversions.

The First Month

Within the first month, our ads process gathered 3 conversions. These represent leads we’re able to track through Google. While the cost per conversion appears high, these leads represent so much more. They represent repeat clients who will continue to invest in this plumbing company over time. They represent great service being shared by word of mouth. They represent brand recognition.

The Third Month

By the third month, we had successfully streamlined their keywords and ads, bringing in consistent traffic.

The Now

With continued optimization to navigate Google’s ever-changing landscape, we’re still helping this Plumbing Company bring in conversions at a consistent cost. Their business continues to grow! While the numbers show consistency and success, these charts don’t show the great feedback this client has provided us. They’ve brought in enough successful leads to build their business by hiring more staff and purchasing new work vans. Third Marble Marketing’s Google Ads Process successfully helped this Plumbing Company grow their business enough to invest in their continued success.

What could your small business do with consistent leads from Google Ads? It could mean hiring people from your community, purchasing a new truck, or maybe that family vacation you've been putting off! If you're ready to learn more about how Google Ads can help bring you steady leads, schedule a call with one of our Google experts today!

How to Setup Your Google Business Profile to Help Your Business

Thu, 01 Dec 2022 19:27:37 GMT

Tips for Your Google Business Profile Setup

Google is still the “800 pound gorilla” when it comes to folks searching for products and services. Here’s the latest proof … over 90% search engine market share … dwarfing other contenders.

Google Business Profiles for Local Small Businesses

Google’s huge market share makes it the unrivaled choice of customers seeking a product or service vendor. So, it’s clear that your local small business is most likely to be found via Google Search and Maps. Once your business appears, the next step is to convert visitors into new customers.

That’s where Google Business Profiles comes in … a free tool for you to take charge of the way your local business is featured to searchers. It is Google’s effort to differentiate small businesses with one location from those with multiple sites. Objective: attract more customers.

Your Google Business Profile proves to be invaluable for eligible local businesses to connect with customers, post updates, list your products and services, accept online orders, and more.

Will your local business qualify? Yes … if your business has a physical location that customers can visit, or provides staff that travel to customers’ locations, you can create a Business Profile on Google.

Note: Brands, organizations, artists, and other online-only businesses aren't eligible.

Later in this piece, we’ll address how to build your profile, or fine-tune an existing one. For now, we’ll focus on content that searchers want to see. Deliver what they judge as valuable to further differentiate your local business from your competitors.

Valuable Content is Key

Remember … searchers are not only seeking solutions for their product/service needs. They want quality information … the more the better to help with their decision-making. Maximize your visitor results. Manage your Business Profile with the following content category checklist:

Characterize your local business with a consistent image of signage, stationery and other branding.
Ensure your address and area served is accurate and precise.
Be concise in describing the primary key core offerings of your local business.
Publish only one profile for your local business to avoid searcher-confusion when viewing how your information displays on Google Maps and Search.

Now, let’s drill down with more specifics of the content to consider including in your Business Profile. Not all will apply to your local business, but you’ll have a good idea of the kind of information searchers seek … and reward you by conversion to customers.

Include Essential Info : phone number, operating hours, access for disabled, etc.
Demonstrate Your Visible Differentiators : photos of your venue and serving customers with prominent view of your logo.
Spotlight the Human-side of Your Local Business : community service, veteran-owned, SWaM certified, black-owned, serving ethnic oriented products/food, etc.
Frequently & Broadly Publish Posts, Special Offers & Events : Stay visible with customers & prospects.
Prompt Customers to Spread the Word About Your Business : Remind customers to leave reviews. Provide a link to do so quickly and easily. Respond promptly to every review to build trust as a local business committed to customer satisfaction.
Send & Receive Direct Messages : You can create automated responses or pause messaging at any time.
Post a Comprehensive List of FAQs : Save your visitors time by providing the answers to common questions. An added plus is to allow customers to answer questions as well.
Highlight Your Product/Service Offerings : Help customers do business with you easily with knowledge of what you do and how you do it … product inventory, ordering, booking, quotes, etc. Let customers know what you sell as soon as they find you online.
Encourage Delivery & Pickup Service : Meet your customers in their “comfort zone” … delivery, pickup, on-site reservations. Note: Restaurants … be sure to feature your menu!
Learn How Searchers Find Your Business Online : Discover what keywords people search to find you and include them in your Profile text as a critical link to connect with potential customers.
Create Synergy … Integrate Google Business Profile Marketing into Your Local SEO Campaigns : Local SEO optimizes your business’s web presence for increased visibility in local organic search engine results.

Note: As you may have noticed, yes …Google Business Profiles are typically quite lengthy.

Conclusions & Next Steps

You may be toying with the idea to make your Google Business Profile a DIY project. If you move forward with that initiative, you will need a Google account and can create one here . Next, review the Guidelines for representing your business on Google . Finally, create a single local business profile by starting here to get listed.

We hope this helps! Looking for more resources for your Google Business Profile? We can help! Check out the following additional pages of information.

Case Study - Local Commercial Landscaping Wins with Steady Conversions to Build Their Business

Mon, 14 Nov 2022 15:58:24 GMT

Locally Owned Commercial Landscaping Company Brings in Leads with Google Ads & Third Marble

The Challenge

This Locally Owned Commercial Landscaping Company based in Ohio reached out for help with marketing on Google Ads. In the beginning, they wanted to keep their budget low until they saw how we could make Google Ads work for them. We’re happy to accommodate businesses of all sizes and budgets to bring in results that help your business flourish.

The Steps

We used our trusted Google Ads Process to build a new campaign in time for Spring. Using A/B testing, we built ads to show clients what made this Local Landscaping Business stand out. Our ads reflected their landing pages to drive better traffic. Using our experience with marketing for landscaping businesses, we created effective keyword-based ad groups that brought in high quality leads.

Spring

The first two months of their campaign brought in a lot of impressions and a good click through rate with a low budget. They didn’t have conversion actions setup yet. Our helpful and experienced Conversion Specialist worked alongside them to get this account off the ground with new leads.

Summer

When they saw success with this Commercial Landscaping campaign, they invested more money into their Google Ads marketing budget. Within two months of a raised budget and successfully installed conversion tracking, they were getting great leads at a low CPA.

Now

With ongoing optimization and an increase in budget, we’ve effectively increased conversions and impressions while continually lowering the cost per conversion. Ongoing optimization allows our team to make ad and keyword adjustments to keep up with Google’s constant changes. Our team works hard to help you bring in the best leads at the best price.

Are you ready to see how Google Ads and Third Marble can increase your leads and quality of leads?

We’re ready to help! Schedule an introduction call today!

Case Study - Third Marble Doubles Landscaping Business' Google Ads Conversions

Mon, 14 Nov 2022 15:42:57 GMT

Residential Landscaping Business Finds Financial Success with Google Ads

The Challenge

This Residential Landscaping Company in the Hudson Valley reached out to Third Marble Marketing in late spring. Their busy season was kicking off and they wanted to bring in new leads with Google Ads. With limited time to bring in leads for spring and summer, our Ads Team got to work.

The Steps

Over the years, our team has helped many locally owned landscaping and lawn service companies generate leads with Google Ads. Using our expertise and Google Ads Process, we quickly and efficiently set up an effective campaign. The campaign featured ads reflecting the company’s branding and landing page content. We curated a list of keywords to drive relevant leads.

The First Month

Within the first month, their campaign was bringing in big results! We helped the Residential Landscaping Company gather 6.5 conversions!

The Second Month

By the second month, we doubled their leads and lowered their cost per conversion while maintaining a low cost per click. Just in time for the summer, we helped this business grow.

The Now

The Residential Landscaping Company just closed out a successful summer season made more profitable with the help of Google Ads. As days grow shorter, we’ve already started preparing their campaign for winter. We have ads written and keywords generated for Snow Plowing & Snow Removal Services, ready to start showing when the snow starts falling. Our team is thrilled to work alongside seasonal businesses to make adjustments to meet your business’s demands.

We love helping small businesses grow! Are you ready to generate leads year-round for your landscaping business? Schedule an introductory call today!

What could your business do with steady leads during your busy season? Schedule a call with one of our Google Experts to see how Third Marble can help you grow your business with Google Ads.

Case Study - Third Marble Increases Ecommerce Conversion Value by 119%

Mon, 10 Oct 2022 15:53:34 GMT

How the Third Marble Way Can Improve Your Shopping Campaign Results

The Challenge

This household cleaning supply company has been around for generations. With over 100 years in business, they’ve weathered the ever-changing landscape of marketing in a digital age. They connected with us to help with their Google Ads Ecommerce campaigns. Their goal was to increase the ad spend as much as possible while maintaining a 150% or better return on ad spend (ROAS) thereby maximizing conversion value. In three months, we tripled the ad spend while retaining their ROAS goal and maximizing conversion value. We used our trusted ads process alongside regular optimization to achieve these goals.

The First Month

Within the first month of service, our team was able to set up Performance Max campaigns for their products. Performance Max campaigns show products not just as shopping ads, but as display ads and search ads on a multitude of networks. Performance Max campaigns help businesses get their products to a wider and more varied audience. We began seeing big results quickly with a 59,740.92 conversion value, 710.21 conversions, and 18,564.07 overall cost.

The Second Month

In the second month, we increased their ad spend by 59% and saw their conversion value increase by 38%.

The Third Month

By the third month, the cost per conversion went up, but those conversions had a much greater value. By increasing their ad spend, they were able to increase their conversion value by 119% within three months while increasing their ad spend by 210%.

What could your business do with 119% increase in conversion value and an increase in conversions?

If you’re ready to promote your products to a larger audience, call our Ecommerce experts! Once you’ve sent your products to Google through Google Merchant Center, Third Marble Marketing will help you reach your goals!

Case Study - TMM Increases Large Medical Specialty Group's Organic Traffic Five Times

Mon, 10 Oct 2022 15:36:07 GMT

This Large Medical Specialty Group came to Third Marble Marketing looking to increase their visibility and SEO ranking. With SEO algorithms changing all the time, our team of dedicated SEO experts are here to help small business owners navigate these swiftly shifting tides.

The Challenge

The Large Medical Specialty Group had a well written and well designed website. This specialty group comprises many different small, locally owned and operated medical practices. We quickly discovered that most of their searches came from their blog posts, which were optimized for national traffic, not local traffic. As a result, the site had high bounce rates and very low conversion rates from a ton of organic traffic, but very few local leads.

The Steps

First, we needed to get the client to understand that the traffic was not local and therefore would never convert to many leads for the local practices. Once they agreed, we began a process of re-optimizing the website for local traffic.

To further push Google to understand the diverse service offerings at each location, we then built mini websites for each of their locations on the main website. Each location page contained unique, expertly written content revised to focus on keywords with specific intent and local geography.

The Results

Within two years, they experienced five times the amount of organic traffic to their local pages with five times the number leads!

What could your business do with five times the organic traffic? Schedule a call to learn more about our SEO Process and how we can help you!

Google's New Content Update - Will It Affect Your SEO Rankings?

Mon, 10 Oct 2022 15:24:46 GMT

Guiding Principle: First … Serve Searchers … Not Rankings

Not Surprising … Another Google Algorithm Change

That said, this one promises to be one of the most significant changes in over a decade. The issue at hand is triggered by Google searchers’ reported frustrations when they land on web pages that don’t live up to their expectations for valuable information, instead they encounter content designed for SEO rankings.

Google’s answer is their new Helpful Content Update . The objective is to identify content that seems to be primarily created for ranking well in search engines to the detriment of people seeking valuable help and information. The update will target unoriginal, low-quality content and curb ranking highly in Google Search. That means searchers will enjoy high quality content consistent with their search goals.

Google wants to reward better and more useful content that was written for humans and to help users.

Initial testing by Google yields positive search results in online education, arts and entertainment, shopping and tech-related content. The indication is that those search topics may exhibit more positive impact by this Helpful Content Update than other search subjects.

Google offers this example of how the update will impact your search for info about a new movie . “You might have previously seen articles that aggregated reviews from other sites without adding perspectives beyond what’s available elsewhere. This isn’t very helpful if you’re expecting to read something new. With this update, you’ll see more results with unique, authentic information, so you’re more likely to read something you haven't seen before.”

Bottom-line … online marketers need to have a conversation with their website content provider to ensure that content is written with the intent to be helpful to readers. Websites featuring written content or that generated by artificial intelligence (AI) designed to JUST rank well on search engines will endure punishment from Google in how the site ranks on searches.

Problem & Punishment

As you see from the above, this is a significant change initiated by Google as it seeks to maintain its premier position as one of the top search engines.

Since the change is now in effect, be aware of any unusual dip or drastic changes in your SEO rankings. If you experience unexpected deviations, examine your content … website visitor-centric or intended to drive your Google rankings?

Earlier this year, Third Marble raised a red-flag in our article regarding Google’s announcement that content generated automatically using AI writing tools violates Google’s Webmaster Guidelines … and would be penalized by their webspam team. That means if your website is caught with AI produced content, you may suffer a sudden drop in your website traffic coupled with a corresponding decline in rankings. Apparently, this bit of news was a precursor to the Helpful Content Update.

Google admits to making about 3,000 changes a year … most are small and not considered SEO oriented algorithm updates. Not so with the Helpful Content Update! It is a major change that will have a sitewide impact.

Typically, Google algorithm updates are applied on a page-by-page basis. This latest update does not just impact individual pages or sections of your site … it generates a ripple-effect throughout your site. That means that if a significant amount of your content is deemed unhelpful, even helpful content sections of your site will suffer. In contrast, Google acknowledged that, “removing unhelpful content could help the rankings of your other content.”

Google is using a new machine learning algorithm that can evaluate and identify unhelpful content. Additionally, it anticipates the results should become increasingly accurate as Google engineers improve the algorithms on a regular basis. This algorithm is in place now and runs automatically.

Note: If your site gets hit by this update, you may experience several months for your site to recover. Google requires proof over time that published content is not intended with the sole reason to rank in search engines … and that will take time. How much time? According to Google:

“Sites identified by this update may find the signal applied to them over a period of months. Our classifier for this update runs continuously, allowing it to monitor newly launched sites and existing ones. As it determines that the unhelpful content has not returned in the long-term, the classification will no longer apply.”

Solutions

The following questions are provided by Google for you to analyze your content to ensure it is likely to be rewarded by the Helpful Content Update.

Questions to build human-first content:

Do you have an existing or intended audience for your business or site that would find the content useful if they came directly to you? 
Does your content clearly demonstrate first-hand expertise and a depth of knowledge (for example, expertise that comes from having actually used a product or service, or visiting a place)?
Does your site have a primary purpose or focus?
After reading your content, will someone leave feeling they’ve learned enough about a topic to help achieve their goal?
Will someone reading your content leave feeling like they’ve had a satisfying experience?
Are you keeping in mind our guidance for  core updates  and for  product reviews ?

Questions to avoid search-engine first content:

Is the content primarily to attract people from search engines, rather than made for humans? 
Are you producing lots of content on different topics in hopes that some of it might perform well in search results?
Are you using extensive automation to produce content on many topics?
Are you mainly summarizing what others have to say without adding much value? 
Are you writing about things simply because they seem trending and not because you’d write about them otherwise for your existing audience?
Does your content leave readers feeling like they need to search again to get better information from other sources?
Are you writing to a particular word count because you’ve heard or read that Google has a preferred word count? (No, we don’t).
Did you decide to enter some niche topic area without any real expertise, but instead mainly because you thought you’d get search traffic?
Does your content promise to answer a question that actually has no answer, such as suggesting there’s a release date for a product, movie, or TV show when one isn’t confirmed?

Conclusions 

Clearly, there is much that Google has initiated, and will continue to launch, enhancements that improve the quality and outcomes of Google Searches for website visitors. The key for online-marketers is to be at the tip of the learning curve as these changes are rolled out.

TMM, as a Google Partner is privileged to current and anticipated refinements. That means we can keep your digital marketing on the cutting edge of conversion success. 

If you’re looking for help to update your website content, we recommend the following local business:

Top of Mind

A focused, continuing effort to perfect your local SEO is critical.

Now your choices are do-it-yourself or invest in a third-party seasoned service provider for assistance. It is likely that you are already wearing several hats as a business owner and adding yet another marketing analytics responsibility is probably not an attractive option. 

By hiring a team of Google experts for your SEO or Google Ads management, you will ensure that your SEO or Google Ads results are always accurate and current with all major Google updates. 

New Google Updates That Are Affecting Your Google Ads

Tue, 13 Sep 2022 19:16:05 GMT

Pop Ups & Page Download Speeds

Destination Experience

All online marketers are striving to be featured on Google Page 1. It is even more essential to be visible to consumers seeking your products and services. Many businesses are turning Google Ads to “audition” their products and services to their potential customers in an effort to get that click. However, the audition and click must be followed by a dynamic commercial performance by your landing page.

Visitors to your website value an exceptional experience when they click on your Google Ad. That means their “destination experience” is your moment of truth to ensure that your site is functional, useful and easy to navigate. It’s important to not only make sure your page has all the ingredients to convince a lead to purchase your service or products, but also to make sure you aren’t adding in things that actively turn those potential customers away.

The team at Third Marble has determined the top two reasons for poor quality scores, ad disapprovals, and account suspensions amongst our customers are Pop Ups and Slow Page Download Speeds.

The below screenshot is taken directly from Google’s Ads Policy page.

While Pop Ups have had their day in the sun, trends now are showing that the end user really dislikes having a pop up on a landing page. If you think about it, the potential consumer landed on a page to read more about your business. Imagine getting a word or two in and having a pop up appear and block out all that text they’re trying to read in an attempt to become your customer. Even worse if it starts playing music, automatically playing some kind of video, or makes it difficult to click out of the pop-up ad. It’s a really quick way to see your potential client bounce back to their search results and select another ad.

Turns out Google feels the same way. They take it so seriously that soon they’ll actually start penalizing Google Ads users by shutting down your ads.

Pop -up Ads

If you’re currently utilizing popups on your desktop or mobile versions of your website. We highly recommend you remove them as soon as possible.

Page Download Speeds

In addition to this new Pop-Up issue, your website’s page download speed is still equally important for your SEO … and your Google Ads campaign. Google is very strict when it comes to keeping their platform the number one search engine, which is why page download speeds are so important. One of the many ways Google ranks your website, for both Google Ads and SEO, is your page download speed.

As an online marketer it is important to monitor your website's page download speeds. Your motivation is that slow page-load performance will negatively impact your objective to accelerate your success in website conversions.

The fact is customers are impatient. They want what they want when they want it. Here are proven stats that profile website visitors’ expectations:

1 in 4 visitors would abandon a website that takes more than 4 seconds to load;
47% of website visitors expect pages to load in 2 seconds or less;
52% of web shoppers report quick page loading as crucial to their loyalty to a website.
79% of online shoppers unhappy about website performance say they will not return to the site.

So, the stated purpose of this piece is to maximize your Google Ads return on investment. That said, missing the mark with one or more of the above “bulleted” consumer expectations will negatively impact your success in converting visitors to customers. That means your Google Ads ROI is severely diminished, or your ads are shut down completely.

Click here for a deep dive into the critical nature of your download speed … and how to troubleshoot.

Takeaways

Your best defense is a strong offense to avoid Google penalties and undergo the agony of seeing your website traffic plummet, Google rankings tumble and website visitor conversions plunge.

All of us at Third Marble Marketing hope this helps you stay ahead of Google’s every changing policy.

Should you have an additional question in regards to your Google Ads or SEO, we highly recommend sending your Account Manager an email. For folks who aren’t already a customer, we welcome you to schedule an introductory call with one of our Google Experts.

Google Maps Unveils New Features

Tue, 23 Aug 2022 16:03:13 GMT

Google Maps Unveils 3 New Features to Appeal to Your Potential Customers

Google Maps has added 3 new features:

New store location feature;
Locator Plus; and
Reserve with Google integration.

New Store Location Feature

Google has launched their “Store Locator Embed Feature”. You benefit from the time-saving convenience to quickly update and showcase all your locations for your website visitors to view … all within a single map.

It’s more important than ever to help customers find your business. The addition of the Store Locator Embed Feature makes it easy for any customer to find your store or business office easily with a review of your map location, company name, address plus city and ZIP/PIN code.

To implement the store locator feature, your best bet is to engage your web developer to install the code on your site. THIS LINK will be valuable for you and your web developer to implement this new feature. Alternatively, Google declares that you can create an awesome store locator in minutes and assures there is no coding involved … you only need to use a spreadsheet table. Here’s the “how-to” link .

An added advantage for online marketers is the store locator analytics tool. This aids business owners to keep tabs on what benefits they are getting (or not getting) from embedding the feature on their website.

Locator Plus Feature

An extension of the Store Locator Embed Feature … the Locator Plus solution … allows you to keep your store details updated by easily importing business details from your Google Business Profile plus explore, customize, and deploy place-based experiences with just a few clicks .

That means a change in the business details of your Google Business Profile will be reflected in the store locator on your website. These changes can include hours, contact information, photos, service options, and more.

Missing Location: You may find that one of your business locations is missing on Google Maps. Here’s a resource if you choose a DIY approach to adding a missing location.

Reserve with Google Integration Feature

With the addition of the Reserve with Google embed feature, Google announced that the enhancement delivers “end-to-end appointment booking flow and connects users to a variety of services.” Now, your customers that use your store locator option for bookings may do so within your locator. Result … a smoother, user-friendly booking process.

This may be more than you want to know, but here’s a resource for you to discuss adding the feature with your web developer and embed the Reserve with Google .

The addition will permit your customers to experience something new in dealing with you and your product and service offerings. Here’s a brief rundown on the added conveniences of doing business with you.

Your customers may:

Make a reservation in Google Maps with Reserve with Google .
Search, book, and pay for bookings or tickets without leaving a Google surface.
Find a local business, reserve a service, and pay for bookings or tickets through the Reserve with Google platform.
Find a business by simply searching for it on Google, in Maps, or in Google Assistant.

Important: Reserve with Google is only available in certain countries/regions where businesses work with a supported scheduling provider .

Takeaways

This article is intended as a “Third Marble Online Marketers Service Announcement”. We hope the above information helps with keeping you current on Google features that will further support your success in attracting more visitors to your website and accelerate your rate of conversions.

We Hope This Helps!

Case Study - How The Third Marble Way Improved A RV Repair Services Google Ads Results

Tue, 16 Aug 2022 14:46:35 GMT

The RV Repair Service: With Time & Optimization, We Increased This Small Business’s Conversions While Decreasing Their CPA

We’re committed to helping Small Business owners and their communities grow. Our team of experts have created clear and effective strategies to help make marketing with Google Ads effective, affordable, and accessible.

The Challenge

This small business focuses on RV repairs in a localized area. The challenge was both to lower their CPA in a centralized area and to teach Google how to understand their highly specific business.

The Steps

In a fast paced world, we like to see results yesterday. GoogleAds takes time to recognize your business in order to generate the most relevant traffic that turns clicks into leads. Our Optimization Team works around the clock to get you the best results. Within a few months, our experienced and communicative team will make sure your account gets the results you want.

Within one month, we were able to lower this RV shop’s CPA while simultaneously increasing their conversions. During the first month of service, our team focused on ads from writing ad copy that best reflected this business’s branding as well as performing A/B testing to find the ads that brought in the most traffic. We honed in on keywords, finding the keywords that turned more clicks into conversions.

The First Month

At the beginning of their service, their cost per conversion was $435 alongside a total of 4 conversions. Our team began the process of testing which ads and keywords brought in the best traffic. We monitored the account to weed out what wasn’t working.

The Third Month

By their third month, we helped lower their CPA down by 76%! Within 30 days, their CPA was down from $345 to $103 and their 30 day conversions went up from 4 to 26. We had isolated the ads bringing in the most conversions and created accurate, geo-specific keywords driving clicks that brought in leads.

The Now

Since the service they provide slows down in winter, they paused their ads for one month. We were happy to shift with their business. They re-enabled their services in the spring. With the groundwork we laid within the first three months, they have progressively brought in more conversions at significantly less cost. Now they’re at a $42.42 CPA with 62.9 conversions in 30 days.

If you’re ready to start seeing your leads increase by investing in Google Ads, schedule a call with us today to speak with a Google Ads expert. We’re here to help your business grow! Schedule your introductory call now.

What could your business do with over 60 leads a month?

Case Study - How The Third Marble Way Increases Leads For Local Optometrists

Fri, 29 Jul 2022 17:37:05 GMT

How Third Marble's Google Ads Management Process Improved Three Different Optometrists Google Ads Results

Like in many industries, locally owned optometry businesses are competing with larger businesses with big marketing budgets. These larger businesses market themselves online as lower cost alternatives with online exams and eyewear subscriptions. For locally owned optometry businesses, it’s more important than ever to get your brand seen on Google. Each click and lead are opportunities to bring in new clients who will return for years to come. This is where Third Marble Marketing and our Process Driven Google Ads Service steps in. We believe in helping small businesses thrive! We’ve tested and honed in our Google Ads Process to help you get more traffic in the digital age that turns clicks into leads so your business can turn those leads into revenue.

The Challenge

As a locally owned optometry business, we focus your Google Ads on the specialized experience, care, and services you provide. We work with you to drive quality traffic to your landing pages, and your branding with clear and attractive messaging. Locally owned optometry businesses feature thoughtful and involved staff, board certified and highly trained doctors, specialized services from dry eye treatments to retina care, comprehensive eye exams, and all of this in a boutique and personalized setting. We work the factors that make your business the best choice into our Google Ads process to get you results!

The Steps

These three locally owned optometry businesses are in different states - Colorado, North Carolina, and Texas. They are all marketing within a 10 mile radius of their physical locations in cities. Since we’ve worked with so many optometry accounts, we know the best keywords and location settings to start bringing in clicks. With the experience, we know what ads tend to work best, but incorporate content that reflects your unique business.

The First Month

Google Ads takes time to recognize your business. By focusing on location, optimal keywords, ad copy, and conversion setup, all three of these businesses brought in leads within the first 30 days.

The Colorado optometrist had 14 conversions at $50.52 cost per lead with $6.37 cost per click.
The North Carolina optometrist had 4 conversions at $118 cost per lead with $4.45 cost per click.
The Texas optometrist had 3 conversions at $292 cost per lead with $0.59 cost per click.

During the first 30 days, our Ads Team carefully monitored and optimized each account. They performed A/B ad testing, monitored keywords, and made the necessary tweaks to help these accounts bring in even better results.

Colorado

North Carolina

Texas

The Third Month

By the third month of Ongoing Optimization, all three of these locally owned businesses saw a rise in clicks turning into leads.

The Colorado optometrist had 33 conversions at $57.04 cost per lead with $5.88 cost per click. Their cost per lead remained.
The North Carolina Optometrist had 52 conversions at $32.83 cost per lead with $4.59 cost per click. Their cost per lead significantly dropped from $118 to $32.83.
The Texas optometrist had 26 conversions at 97.83 cost per lead with $0.57 cost per click. Their cost per lead significantly dropped from $292 to $97.83.

Colorado

North Carolina

Texas

The Now

With time, we’ve continued to help these locally owned optometry businesses bring in great results. Since their initial setup, we’ve continued ongoing optimization alongside working with the clients to identify their goals. Each of these locally owned optometry businesses, we’ve helped encourage major increases in leads and major drops in cost per lead. Depending on factors like location and competition, we sometimes see a higher cost per click. However in these instances, a higher CPC brings in better leads for a significantly lower cost per lead.

In the last 90 days,

the Colorado Optometrist has 48 conversions at $37.13 cost per lead with $6.60 cost per click. That’s a 45% conversion increase and 35% cost per lead decrease since their original setup.
The North Carolina optometrist has 67 conversions at $24.47 cost per lead with $3.84 cost per click. That’s a 29% conversion increase and 25% cost per lead decrease from their original setup.
The Texas optometrist has 68 conversions at $58.04 cost per lead with $1.06 cost per click. That’s a 161% conversion increase & 40% cost per lead decrease from their original setup.

Colorado

North Carolina

Texas

We’re here to help you avoid the pitfalls of Google Ads with our tested and trusted Google Ads Process. If you’re ready to hit your target and invest in Google Ads, schedule a call with one of our experts today!

Could your practice benefit from a 78% increase in leads?

Case Study - Private School Increases Conversions

Fri, 29 Jul 2022 17:28:47 GMT

More Conversions at Less Cost for New England Private School

As your business changes and grows, Third Marble Marketing is with you every step of the way! We’re committed to helping local businesses and their communities thrive. This Private School invested in Google Ads to increase revenue and saw big results!

The Challenge & The Steps

Our goal was to help this local business increase conversions at a lower cost and actively engage with their community. Using our Expert Google Ads setup, we built effective and well performing campaigns for this New England Private School. Our Ads team carefully monitored this account to make necessary adjustments.

As their business evolved, they paused services to undergo a rebrand. After their rebrand, we worked alongside the client to help make sure their ads reflected their branding and landing pages in order to guarantee the best Google results. Using both Search and Display Campaigns, we’ve been able to increase leads at a lower CPA (cost per action) and lower CPC (cost per click).

The First Month

Within the first month of their initial service, our account managers, conversion specialist, and optimization team focused on their location, a 20 mile radius around the school, and tested the best keywords and ad combinations to bring in traffic that produced clicks that turned into leads. Using our Ads Process, their ads and keywords drew in 15 conversions with a $4.97 CPC and $60.03 CPA.

The Third Month

Within the first three months, with regular optimizations, we lowered the CPC from an average of $4.97 per click to an average of $2.63 per click. Alongside more cost effective clicks, more leads came in - from an average of 15 conversions per 30 days to 17 conversions over 30 days, with 53 overall conversions. The CPA dropped 33%, from $60.03 to $40.08.

The Rebrand

When the client restarted their Google Ads after their rebrand, we used the data we gathered from their initial service to create even more effective campaigns. We reworked the Ad Copy to mirror their landing page and messaging to create a cohesive marketing strategy. Our optimization team regularly monitored the account, making tweaks and edits to bring in better results. Within one month of restarting, their CPC lowered from $2.63 to $0.52. Their 30 day conversion average increased to 30. Their CPA dropped to $16.95.

The Third Month After The Rebrand

Within three months, their CPC and CPA remained both low and consistent as the conversions steadily grew to 88 conversions over 90 days, a 66% increase from the previous year and original ads setup.

The Now

As these campaigns continue to run, the CPC averages $0.49 per click, their conversion cost averaging $12.82 per lead, and their 30 day conversion average continues to excel. Are you ready to grow your business with Google Ads? Our team of Google Ads experts are here to help you hit your target!

What would14 additional leads per month mean for your business?

Schedule a call with one of our Google Experts to talk about how Google Ads can help you grow your business.

Announcing Our New Local SEO Process

Fri, 22 Jul 2022 11:27:58 GMT

Improved SEO Service, Same Cost

Driving Local SEO Success

The driver of Local SEO success is diligent response to the ever-changing Google SEO algorithms. In 2021 alone Google made over 400 algorithm updates that affected SEO efforts. The daunting task of keeping up requires frequent professional adaptation and remodeling to ensure your best shot at reaching and maintaining Page One placement on Google Search results.

Constant monitoring of Google’s algorithm manipulations is a perpetual process , not a one-time “set-it-and-forget-it" event. That’s why the Third Marble SEO team decided it was time to move beyond our former Block Process to The Third Marble Way – a new Quarterly Process enhancement. Updating this process was necessary in order to keep our customer’s SEO services “ahead of the curve” of those never-ending algorithm updates.

What Does This Mean for Current TMM Customers?

Current clients in the middle of our “Foundational Blocks” will benefit from more quality work, delivered faster for the same price! Our Search Engine Optimization Team are seasoned professionals dedicated to anticipating and responding to Google changes. That means the Team will continue to:

Prioritize web page optimizations in less time. Meaning our team will complete initial onsite work in 6 months in contrast to the up to 12 months with the former process.

Streamline reporting to show quarterly results which better plots performance trends.

Current customers who requested we make Google Business Profile posts and respond to positive reviews will continue to receive those services for the same cost. (These are now add on services in the new process because we believe it’s to the benefit of their business to perform those tasks for their business.)

While pricing is increasing across the country, the team at Third Marble continues to work hard to improve our efficiency to continue to invest in local business by providing a better service at the same cost.

Current customers are urged to email your Account Manager with questions about your company’s transition to the new process.

Overview of The Third Marble Way Refinements

One of Third Marble's core values is transparency. So we always make an effort to outline our processes for potential and current clients. Below is a high level outline of our new Local SEO Process if you're interested. You can CLICK HERE to visit a more in depth look at the new process. If you have any questions about our process, please schedule an introductory call with a member of our sales team or your Account Manager.

Conclusions 

Google will surely continue with hundreds of algorithm changes to maintain its dominance as the search engine. The key is to be at the tip of the transitional curve as these changes are rolled out. TMM, as a Google Partner, is ready to improve and defend your website's placement through the inevitable changes.

Is Your Website’s Page Download Speed Negatively Affecting Your SEO?

Wed, 20 Jul 2022 18:47:41 GMT

Google is consistently trying to keep itself at the top of the search engine options charts. So it needs to make sure that every website it populates is also a top notch source for the keyword phrase the searcher is looking for. One of the many ways Google ranks your website is your page download speed.

Why else should you be concerned about download speed?

Two reasons, you want your website visitors to 1) stay long enough to 2) do something . As we’ll define in more detail, your visitors won’t hang around for more than a few seconds waiting for your page to download. Which means potentially unproductive traffic to your site for you and worse, the loss of a potential lead.

So, you (ideally with TMM as your Google Ads Management & SEO resource) drive quality traffic to your website. What happens next is between you and your web design agency. Together, your objective is to examine and rebuild your site as necessary to escalate conversions of visitors to customers. One of those considerations should be your website's page download speed.

Read on for facts and solutions to accelerate your website’s conversion rate.

Magnify Your Web Pages Loading Speed

Addressing this issue directly, slow page-load performance will negatively impact your objective to accelerate your success in website conversions .

A slow loading website hurts your business in three ways:

Poor User Experience - No one wants to wait more than a few seconds for a page to load. A website visitor staring at a blank screen each time they try to view a different page on your website might bypass using your service or purchasing your product all together.
Increased Bounce Rates and Lower Conversion Rates - We live in a world of instant gratification. It's easier for most people to hit the back button and go to a different website than it is for them to wait for your page to load.
Poor Page Ranking on Google - That's right, Google will penalize your slow loading website in their Search Engine Results. Basically, Google wants the searcher to have a good experience when they click on Google Search Results. We rarely see pages in the top half of page 1 with 10+ second page load times.

Experts have reported important, even alarming, downsides to slow loading of pages. Here are some of the more important findings.

Customers Are Impatient

1 in 4 visitors would abandon a website that takes more than 4 seconds to load
1 second delay reduces customer satisfaction by 16%
47% of website visitors expect pages to load in 2 seconds or less, plus you will lose an additional 10% of your visitors with every additional second of delay.
52% of web shoppers report quick page loading as crucial to their loyalty to a website.
79% of online shoppers who are unhappy about website performance say they won’t return to the site to buy again.

Address Your Mobile Page Download Speeds, Not Just Desktop

Audience Participation Exercise

OK. Here’s a chance for self-examination of your website. Visit https://pagespeed.web.dev/ and pick one of your landing pages. This FREE tool will tell you exactly how quickly your page’s download speed is for both desktop and mobile.

Not only will this tool tell you your page download speeds, it will also provide you with a list of things your web developer can do to help improve your page speeds!

Your Next Steps … Boost Page Download Speed … Accelerate Conversions
You and your website design agency can work together to improve your website's visitor experience and ensure they’ll want to convert into a client.

Depending on your unique circumstances, we anticipate that one or more issues may need to be reviewed, revised or implemented:

Size of files on your website;
Inclusion of photos, graphics;
Streamlined website coding;
Compelling content.

Our job at Third Marble Marketing is to deliver proven, successful strategies to maximize the effectiveness of your Google Ads, improve your SEO strategy, feature you on Page One of Google and drive pre-qualified traffic to your website! However, your website's download speeds can greatly affect our ability to get you on page one. We hope you found this article helpful!

Are you ready to add SEO services to your marketing tool box? Schedule an introductory call with one of our Google Experts today. We hope this helps!

Google Expands Search Value of Visuals

Thu, 16 Jun 2022 17:06:00 GMT

Third Marble Presents: Advanced “Heads-Up” for Internet Marketers

Clearly, every digital marketer aims to create ad campaigns to be visible, actionable and memorable.

Visible … to ensure Page One status in Google Searches;
Actionable … to make it easy for site visitors to do business with you; and
Memorable … for that moment when a buying decision or referral opportunity surfaces.

Third Marble delivers all the above for our clients!

Advanced Briefing for Google Partners Only

As a preferred Google Partner , TMM is honored to have been invited … along with marketers from around the world ... to Google Marketing Live 2022. Our reward for attending … a privileged advance peek of the latest best practices to drive results today and build resilience for tomorrow.

In this article we’ll share with you, our valued readers, the latest info about Google Ads and Commerce innovations that drive positive business outcomes. As a Google Partner, TMM clients … existing and new … will automatically benefit as we implement the latest state-of-the-art Google additions.

Video Ads Sharing - Google & YouTube: In place now, TMM client video action and app campaigns will be featured globally on YouTube Shorts … offering automatic exposure to expanded markets and making your video ads increasingly shoppable.

Product Feeds On Video Action Campaigns: Later this year, YouTube Shorts will feature your products with video ads in Discover satisfying website visitors with their favorite personalized content for ideas and inspiration. The intent is for you to offer more compelling and engaging ad experiences.

Driving Business Results With Automation: Last year Google launched Performance Max to deliver superior results across Google’s ad channels and inventory. Participating advertisers enjoy a year-over-year 13% increase in conversions with no corresponding increase in cost.

Attribution Insights Show How Your Ads Work Together to Deliver Results: Later in 2022, Google will roll out a system that will display the best-performing combination of automatically created assets, and the assets you provide, to make your ads more relevant.

New Mobile-First Layouts For Responsive Display Ads: In place now, advertisers can use the new account-level Asset Library to store and curate all their digital creative assets. That improvement will then be further enhanced by the ability to create video ads using YouTube-optimized templates.

Search and Conversion Lift Tests: Search Lift tests will enable measuring the impact of your YouTube campaigns In driving organic searches on both Google and YouTube. Conversion Lift tests measure incremental conversions based on users and geography. Together, these tests help you understand the business impact of your ads.

Putting People in Control of Their Privacy and Online Experience: Google will begin worldwide testing of interest-based advertising later this year. The objective is to allow people to pick the types of ads they prefer to see and how their data helps in ad development. The result is anticipated to be more confidence and trust in advertising on the part of prospects and customers … coupled with data that helps ensure you are addressing the preferences of a relevant, engaged audience.

Importance of images: Google is already shifting to make all ads more visual whether they be search/text, display, or shopping promotions. As a Google Partner, TMM was privy to test a beta version of image extensions. Image extensions allow advertisers to upload rich, relevant visuals to complement their existing text ads. The net result is to drive performance for advertisers, with compelling visuals of products or services that enhance the message of their text ads. Potential customers will be shown the following whenever your image extension appears on the Google search results page … all to enhance the value of the underlying ad content.

Your headlines
Your descriptions
Your URL
Your image

In anticipation of the current and future value of visuals to keep your ad campaigns visible, actionable and memorable ... TMM urges small businesses to invest in professional photos or buy stock images that permit use in advertising. Taking this step now will keep your ads relevant for the continuing evolution of Google Ads. Here’s a link to image provider resources.

Conclusions

Clearly, there is much that Google has initiated, and will continue to launch, enhancements that improve the quality and outcomes of Google Ads for online-marketers. The key is to be at the tip of the learning curve as these improvements are rolled out. TMM, as a Google Partner is privileged to current and anticipated refinements. That means we can keep your digital marketing on the cutting edge of conversion success.

Google Objects to GBT-3 AI Writing Tools

Tue, 03 May 2022 16:06:44 GMT

Why Small Business Owners Should Care … SEO Rankings at Risk!

Here’s “content” for you to have a conversation with your website content provider .

Your objective is to have your company appear on Page One of Google searches. That means enlisting professional SEO help to avoid content that Google will deem “spam” and drive your rankings down.

Frame-of-Reference for Your Website Content Provider Conversation

Promise not to lead you into the weeds … just a brief perspective on the potentially negative effect of the GBT-3 artificial intelligence (AI) writing tool on your Google rankings.

The Good News: GBT-3 is an AI writing tool built by an artificial intelligence program that automatically generates text that is indistinguishable from that generated by a human author. The good news for general-purpose content applications … it is able to create articles and even books in hours based on a small amount of text input for a particular topic.

GBT-3 learns how to write by reading millions of articles and books from Google Books and other websites. The finished product is written with perfect grammar, correct punctuation, and no spelling mistakes. Notably, the quality of the text generated by GPT-3 is so high that it can be difficult to determine whether or not it was written by a human … which, as we’ll see, has both benefits and risks for digital marketers.

Initial reactions to the introduction of GBT-3 in mid-2020 was distinctly positive. Since content plays a crucial role in SEO , a number of tech-savvy marketing pros welcomed it as a valuable tool to create and leverage original content for website articles, blog posts and advertising. Since GPT-3 written copy is just as persuasive as human-written copy, it was touted as the answer to create content that drives higher rankings in Google searches … efficiently and cost effectively.

The Not-So-Good News: In early April this year, Google announced that content generated automatically using AI writing tools violates Google’s Webmaster Guidelines . Google’s Search Advocate, John Mueller, classified such content as spam … and if detected by the Google’s webspam team may result in a “manual penalty”.

That means if your website is caught with AI produced content, you may suffer a

sudden drop in your website traffic coupled with a corresponding decline in rankings.

So, what are the odds of GBT-3 generated content being spotted by the webspam team? Apparently, there is no automatic discovery protocol in place at Google. That said, Mueller is specific in stating that “… if we see that something is automatically generated, then the webspam team can definitely take action” … and treat it as spam.

Takeaways

There’s no way to predict when the Google webspam team may scan your website and discover AI generated content. So, “Better to be safe than sorry”, is your safest guiding principle.

Go through a “content audit” with your website content writer(s) … whether internal talent or independent copywriters. Your objective is to determine what, if any, text has been written via AI technology. Then direct your writer resource(s) to immediately replace that content with human-written copy … or just remove it, period.

That’s your best immediate and ongoing defense to avoid Google penalties and undergo the agony of seeing your website traffic plummet, Google rankings tumble and website visitor conversions plunge.

We, at Third Marble, will keep you updated in the event of any changes to Google’s stated position regarding AI created content as this form of text creation becomes more and more prevalent.

A focused, continuing effort to perfect your local SEO is critical.

Now your choices are do-it-yourself or invest in a third-party seasoned service provider for assistance. It is likely that you are already wearing several hats as a business owner and adding yet another marketing analytics responsibility is probably not an attractive option.

By hiring a team of Google experts for your SEO or Google Ads management, you will ensure that your SEO or Google Ads results are always accurate and current with all major Google updates.

Small Business Owners! Google to Discontinue Universal Analytics (UA)

Mon, 04 Apr 2022 15:08:33 GMT

How That Affects Your Google Rankings … and What to Do Now!

The Only Thing That Remains Unchanged is Change

Google-World-of-Analytics is a perpetual evolution machine. And thankfully so! Keeping on the leading edge of the online measurement curve is essential to maintain your SEO position and enhance your Google rankings. Google’s analytic technology is a critical tool to track Google Ads conversions and build an effective digital marketing strategy. Heads up … there is an important change on the horizon.

The soon-to-be adopted significant upgrade is the planned obsolescence of Universal Analytics to be replaced by Google Analytics 4 (GA4). GA4 differs from its predecessor in that it operates across platforms, doesn’t rely on cookies and uses an event-based data model for measurement. It also does not store IP addresses, which can help brands stay on the right side of privacy regulations.

Here’s Google’s explanation for the switch … followed by a TMM roadmap for small businesses to profit from the transition.

“Universal Analytics was built for a generation of online measurement that was anchored in the desktop web, independent sessions and more easily observable data from cookies,” Russell Ketchum, director, product management at Google, said in the announcement. “This measurement methodology is quickly becoming obsolete.”

What Small Business Owners Can Expect

GA4 is a tool structured to analyze and track the traffic that comes to your website in total … whether driven organically or via other advertising efforts including your Google Ads. That means you enjoy a complete picture of every visitor who converts on your website, not just in your Google Ads. The enhancements of GA4 significantly boosts generating leads as well as connecting online and offline customer engagement.

OK, so let’s take a look at the timeline for the changeover. Effective July 1, 2023, Google will cease processing new data via UA. Previously processed data will be accessible for at least six months following that date. While over a year seems quite a way off, it does prompt a sense of urgency as the “switch” is not simply to turn UA ‘off’ and turn GA4 ‘on’. Configuring GA4 now will enable immediate tracking of the metrics you care about … and thereby ensure that historical data is there to retrieve when formulating your marketing strategies in 2023.

TMM Clients as Case Studies

An excellent introduction to approaching the conversion to GA4 by small businesses is to review what the TMM Transition Team has done and is doing to initiate an orderly transition for our clients. Admittedly, as a Google Partner , TMM has been aware of the pending “passing of the baton” for several months. With that advanced heads-up, our clients have benefitted from a head-start on the changeover … thereby avoiding any last-minute conversion anxiety.

Where available TMM’s client now has GA4 installed to run parallel and simultaneously collect data in concert with their existing UA measurement facility. The objective is to make the GA4 “live” to collect data for 3 to 4 months in a “training-wheels” transition environment to ensure the quality of collected data.

Once the GA4 demonstrates proficiency, the UA will be detached from their Google Ads accounts and GA4 immediately connected as the new measurement vehicle. Effectively, clients will realize no interruption in the recording of conversions in their Google Ads account.

Your 6-Step Checklist to Prepare for the Change to GA4

Every small business owner who currently employs UA is urged to install GA4 asap. As described above, this will give you at least several months or longer to anticipate and execute the conversion from UA no later than the planned obsolescence date of July 1, 2023. Here are 6 steps to help you in that transition:

Set up a GA4 property in your current Google UA account. (Note: Do not include goals or conversions at this point.)
Install the GA4 code on every page of your website.
Run GA4 parallel to your UA for a brief period.
After a few days, duplicate/install in your GA4 same goals and conversions as your UA, but do not import the GA4 conversions into Google Ads. Allow Google Ads to track conversions via UA.
After 3 months, unlink your UA account from your Google Ads account and link/import your conversions from your GA4 account as appropriate.
Remove the UA code from your website to cease collecting new data.

A focused, continuing effort to perfect your local SEO is critical.

Now your choices are do-it-yourself or invest in a third-party seasoned service provider for assistance. It is likely that you are already wearing several hats as a business owner and adding yet another marketing analytics responsibility is probably not an attractive option.

By hiring a team of Google experts for your SEO or Google Ads management, you will ensure that your SEO or Google Ads results are always accurate and current with all major Google updates.

5 Things a Small Business Owner Needs to Do to Get More Customers from Google in 2022

Mon, 14 Feb 2022 14:25:03 GMT

Fine-tune Your Website … Drive Traffic & Convert Visitors to Customers

Heads-up for small business owners and local business marketing decision-makers:

Google is the single, premier source to generate leads. It is critical for you to understand how the search engine works … and then execute digital marketing strategies to enjoy significant boosts in online inquiries that convert to customers. Join the many companies that realize over 50 percent of their lead generation through expert implementation of their online presence. Here’s where to start.

1. Focus Your Website Goals on Today’s Buyer Decision-making Profiles

The marketing facts support that today’s buyer has already recognized a need and is actively seeking a solution. And where does that search begin … online, of course. So, the first thing a Google searcher will see is your website.

Visitors to your website come in two main decision-making profiles:

A casual visit based on awareness of your offerings prompted by traditional advertising, i.e. radio or print ads. At this stage, it’s likely that they are not actively looking for a solution to a problem. That said, they now know your services and as needs develop will hopefully respond positively as prospects.
Committed seekers of solutions to a recognized problem are prospects that are actively doing research online and are well on their way to choosing a vendor.

So, let’s focus on the second group. Since they are viewing your website along with those of your competitors, your job is to rise above the “virtual/visual noise-level” of the cry that, “We are better!”. Not only must you demonstrate that yours is a superior solution, it’s critical that you offer proof of that claim … plus motivate immediate action on the part of the visiting prospect.

We’ve worked with small business clients for well over a decade and have found these examples to be proven appeals that convert inquiring seekers to qualified prospects and frequently to satisfied customers:

“Voted Best ____ in (city, state) by _____”
“No overtime, no contracts, no nonsense”
“Highest rated ____ on ______”
“No pushy sales people, no hidden fees”
“We travel to you”
“Fastest arrival times in (city)”

These examples, and other similar benefit statements deliver answers to the prospect’s inevitable question … “What makes this company the best value to satisfy my needs.” Your selection as best value is not based on what you do … rather it’s what you do for them.

2. Encourage Response to a Specific Call-to-Action (CTA)

At this point, we can assume that you have a website visitor that has a genuine interest in your products or services. So, the immediate “moment-of-truth” decision on your part is what call-to-action do you want that person to take? Your objective is to generate leads, so present your primary/preferred CTA in clear language … ideally coupled to a payoff – a tangible or informational reward.

To avoid confusing your website visitors, pick a single CTA for your website … and make it highly visible from top, center and bottom of the page. Make it inviting and non-threatening. Assure peace-of-mind so there is no hesitation based on questions like … “If I fill-out this form, what happens next? Why should I click this “Submit” button and give you my email address?”

Your sales process capabilities will help you decide. If you have people dedicated to answering phones, then a phone call might be best. If you want foot traffic in your store, then “click here for directions”. If you work by appointment only, then “schedule an introductory call” might be best.

Now for a bit of sales psychology. All of us (yes, you and I included) make our buying decisions emotionally and then justify them logically. So, appeal to those human mental-mechanics in your CTA with strong “next-step” guidance to … do it now and why! You decide which of the following would make you move forward.

"Yes! I want a free, no-obligation quote today!” vs. a button that reads “Submit”
“Call now for our best prices” vs. “Phone”
“Schedule today and feel better tomorrow” vs. “Appointment”
“Yes! Show me where the best frozen yogurt is” vs. “Map”
“Waiting only makes it worse. Quickest response team in (city)” vs. “Call us”

Note: As many as 90% of visitors to your website do so via their mobile phone … and find it most convenient to call rather than fill out a form. Turbo-charge your conversion rates with a floating “Click-to-Call” button on the mobile rendering of your site … placed at the bottom of the screen directly under the visitor’s thumb as they scroll down. An opportunity to trigger a “knee-jerk” take-action click.

A strong CTA is the key to improve your conversion rates. Bottom-line … more leads for the same number of visitors.

3. Register Your Business on Google Business Profiles (Formally Known as Google My Business)

Google Business Profiles (GBP) is your resource to register a local business with Google, including Google Maps and other properties. It’s 100% free. Go to google.com/business to initiate the simple, easy-to-use registration process.

There are hundreds of things you can do to enhance your GBP. Here are some of the highlights:

Get reviews from your customers. This is difficult to do, but it should absolutely become one of your marketing strategies.
Reply to the reviews in a meaningful way. Don’t just say “Thank you”. Put a little effort into the reply to show the person that left the review that you appreciate them.
When replying to a review, try to add one or two keywords that someone might search for to find your business or services.
Pick categories for your business. Make the list short, not long. Only pick categories that are largely relevant to your business and your services.
Post occasionally. Much like posting on a Facebook business page, you can post content on your GBP page. Make sure the content is relevant to someone actively looking for your services.

Once your Business Profile is completed, you should also start to register your business with other business listing websites, like Facebook, LInkedIn, Alignable, Yelp, Manta, local chambers, Angi and others. There are hundreds of them, so be sure to choose those most relevant to attract your potential customer audiences.

Note: Make sure you use the exact same name of your business, address and phone number on all business listings. Think of your “business name, address and phone number” as your business’s social security number online. It needs to be exactly the same everywhere or it won’t match. So, if your business name is “Great Services” in your GBP, then don’t use “Great Services, LLC” in your Facebook page.

4. Content Is King!

Recent Google SEO algorithm updates reward websites with well-written content. Google’s intent is to provide the Google User with the best, most relevant results it can find. One of the measurements that Google uses to determine “good results” is the acronym, E-A-T. The evaluation determines whether the content demonstrates:

Expertise (Industry Expert)
Authority (Thought Leader)
Trustworthy (Awards, Certifications)

That means your local business must have better written content than what your competitors display on their websites … especially superior to those that appear on sites above your ranking in Google Search Results. Take charge and look at competitor rankings higher than what you register. Do their posts demonstrate more, or less E-A-T than those you offer on your website?

Content that is perceived as valuable and informative by your preferred audiences is critical. Equally, the number of words in a post is indicative of the measure of E-A-T it likely conveys. Ideally, posts of 750 to 1,500 words attract the attention of Google algorithms and delivers on your endeavor to consistently appear on Page 1 of Google Searches.

Note: Frequency of posting is a must. Depending on your industry and availability of internal or third-party resources … initiate a regular schedule to research, write and post relevant articles. A “one-and-done” approach will not prove to be a successful marketing strategy.

5. Technical Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

While well-written content is part of the equation, the web page’s technical SEO is critical to your success. That said, your choices to initiate and maintain effective SEO is either do-it-yourself (DIY) or hire proven expertise.

DIY: Assuming you have the time to work on your SEO and stay on top of the latest Google algorithm updates, you’ll also need to employ a thirst-for-knowledge to your efforts. Some things to research and maintain current:

Title Tags
Meta Descriptions
H1 Tags

Hire an SEO company: You guessed it, the place to start your search is to Google a phrase such as “SEO near me” or “SEO company (city, state)”. You will get results … and when you do, only consider those that appear on Page 1 of your Google Search. A lesser ranking indicates the firm can’t optimize their website, so not likely to produce value for you.

Local business SEO services typically range in cost from $200 to $2000 per month. The services may or may not include the technical SEO on your website, optimizing your GBP (see Item 3 above) backlinking, content creation, citations and other services that help ensure success. So, be sure to discuss the current level of your website’s technical on-page SEO and proficiency in developing well-written content. That conversation will identify the best working relationship with your SEO vendor.

BONUS: Google Ads

Google Ads are an excellent vehicle to quickly drive traffic to your website … whether yours is a relatively young venture or a mature business. It is a proven marketing strategy that is both measurable and scalable to generate leads and conversions to customers.

That said, similar to the discussion in Item 5 above, few people have the time or expertise to approach Google Ads as a DIY project. Additionally, it’s not for the financially squeamish … Google Ads campaigns can take some time before delivering a positive ROI. Recommendation: Hire a proven professional company to manage your Google Ads efforts.

Takeaways

Google is the single, premier source to generate online leads. Local business owners and decision-makers need to understand how the search engine works and how to employ successful strategies to grow a small business. Most small businesses start their Google marketing journey with GBP, then expand into a small Google Ads campaign, then start implementing SEO strategies. When done correctly, these businesses typically see significant increases in leads and new customers. Many of these companies get over 50% of their leads from Google.

Processed-Based Service VS Project-Based Agency

katieb@thirdmarblemarketing.com (Katie Bonner) — Mon, 20 Dec 2021 17:12:38 GMT

FAST, GOOD, AFFORDABLE

Third Marble Delivers All 3 with Proven Processes!

Profit from proven processes versus paying for custom solutions.

TMM has initiated and enhanced a proven process for small businesses that delivers more leads, increased sales, and a boost in investment return on your marketing dollars … all in an amazingly affordable package. Net result … fast, good and affordable Google Ads and Search Engine Optimization. Our “secret sauce” is the perfection of being a “Process-Based digital marketing service.

So, let’s distinguish between “Process-Based” and “Project-Based ” as those terms relate to small business marketing budgets.

Project-Based Agency

Project-Based marketing agency’s approaches start with the premise that every client is a unique project . That means the objective is to create a “one-of-a-kind” solution. In pursuit of that goal, the project team is tasked to “think outside the box” and brainstorm a marketing campaign uniquely tailored for each client. Said another way … craft an untested experiment paid for by the client.

A Project-Based methodology requires a group effort, considerable planning and execution time and hope that the efforts are rewarded by consumer response when launched in the digital marketing arena. This does not inspire confidence that the marketing campaign will be fast, good and affordable when it exits from these tedious and expensive stages of customization.

Process-Based Marketing Service

By way of contrast, Process-Based marketing service is based on a sound foundation of proven promotional tactics that are positively reproduced for virtually any small business. That doesn’t mean a one-size-fits-all, cookie cutter approach. The unique products and culture of every customer is acknowledged and maintained … it’s the mix of verified marketing ingredients that is the time and money-saver coupled with demonstrated histories of success. That means no need to reinvent the wheel for every new customer’s marketing endeavor … thus eliminating delivery-time and money bottlenecks.

A clear understanding of the power of Process-Based is demonstrated in the world of franchising. The obvious appeal to a budding entrepreneur is that the purchase of a franchise eliminates lots of unknowns. The franchisor represents proof of a successful model fully operational in multiple locations. For franchisees, the challenge is to apply that system to their market knowing missteps of the past have been addressed and resolved by the franchisor. No budget-busting, time-consuming trial-and-error efforts required.

Now let’s view the franchise-business from a customer’s perspective with McDonald’s as an example. You, as the customer, are confident that the Quarter Pounder, Big Mac or order of fries is consistent with the quality and experience you had last time that you visited. You also recognize that your enjoyment is based on a repeatable, well-defined process for preparing your meal. That means you get your food … fast, good and affordable!

Another example of American ingenuity in developing, refining and delivering a “Process-Based” product … Henry Ford. Ford didn't invent the automobile. He invented a better way to make the automobile through a defined process.

Ford's process was so efficient that the company built cars in under an hour at a fraction of the price charged by Project-Based producers. The result was a quality automobile at a price point the average American could afford. Notably by 1920, 50% of all cars on the road in the USA were the Model T!

Applause please … for a Process-Based service delivering … fast, good and affordable!

A Process-Based Digital Marketing Service Like Third Marble's Drives More Business at Less Cost

OK … let’s get specific about getting you more paying customers. The principles described above clearly support the conclusion that a well-defined, time-tested process that delivers repeatable results is the quickest, most efficient and cost-effective approach to get your business on page one of Google.

In a nutshell, we know how to get more leads and conversions for small business owners with Google Ads and SEO simply because that’s all we do and have done since our founding in 2009. Continuous improvement is our guiding principle … at this point a “marker” in our corporate DNA.

Why is this important? Google Ads and SEO are both data intensive marketing strategies that require a knowledge and application of statistical concepts. The process of managing the results from these strategies is very similar to an industrial process … and that’s how TMM structures digital marketing deliverables for small businesses.

For example, when a campaign is in control and yielding the anticipated flow of leads, minor adjustments to the system are typically all that’s needed. However, when a campaign is out of control and not meeting promotional goals, then corrective actions need to be taken.

The process of corrective actions is relatively simple and predictable when a Process-Based plan is in place. Based on a series of "if / then" conditions, we know what actions to take next … never in a crisis management mode because we know the process and how to tweak the “moving parts”.

Like adjusting the flavor of a soup - IF it needs salt, THEN add salt. IF it needs pepper, THEN add pepper. A Project-Based service requires meetings and discussions to figure out what the soup needs - that takes time and costs money. In a Process-Based service, the salt and pepper are added if needed without seeking input and analysis from various players.

In effect, we deliver a rapid response team approach to problem-solving that is practical and quick … with no unexpected client billing surprises. Why risk your marketing budget and sales success on a team that starts every project with an untested experiment paid for by you? TMM already knows the way. Click HERE to learn more about the difference between full service agencies and our process driven service.

Takeaways

TMM’s Process-Based approach gets you to the profitable peak of the digital marketing mountain … on a proven path without charging you unnecessarily to “blaze new trails”. Bottom line, you realize your business development goals faster and cheaper without excessive, time-wasting meetings and cost burdens not anticipated in your initial budget. Your payoff … repeatable, predictable results at a price in hundreds of dollars … not thousands.

Start the New Year with a service that drives website traffic and new customer leads.

Our team at Third Marble is constantly striving to find the most cost-effective ways to improve our clients' results with organic and pay per click placements on Google. Increase your marketing effectiveness by hiring an entire team of Google marketing experts, instead of hiring new staff or adding Google to your already long list of duties. Schedule an introductory call today to talk more about our Google Ads management or SEO services today!

Third Marble has been named a top local Google Ads management and outsourced SEO company.

Maximizing Your Internet Marketing Return On Investment

Tue, 09 Nov 2021 14:50:02 GMT

How We Can Help & Recent Company Accolades

Planning for Expanded Success in 2022

Maybe hard to believe … but fact is we’re now in Q4 2021. That means your promotional plans for this year are wrapped up or in final stages of execution. So, the immediate focus for small business owners is to plan for the New Year … and that includes internet marketing strategies and budgets.

As you develop your plans for 2022, be mindful that the pandemic has fundamentally changed the buying habits of American consumers. Prime case in point … we shop more online and less in stores. That said, you may have responded to the market with how you deliver your products or services. But did you change the way you market your offerings? Best guess … probably not. Most companies are still duplicating 2019 tactics.

In planning for the New Year, Third Marble Marketing advises to place your promotional messages where your customers and key prospects are looking … increasingly they turn to Google. Along with every business owner your objective is to rank #1 on Google Page One!

Third Marble can help you initiate and execute plans for 2022 with the proven payoff to maximize your Ecommerce ROI … in whatever U.S. market you serve . Together, we can fashion your best Google Digital Marketing strategy with one or a mix of the following services:

National/Ecommerce SEO
Local SEO
Search
Display
Remarketing
Shopping
YouTube

In short … you’ll profit from a comprehensive internet marketing strategy that is affordable … plus enjoy a significant boost in ROI … driven by a meaningful bump in revenue. Click here for more info on TMM’s 5-Step Checklist for Success .

Your Resources to Learn the Power of Search Engine Optimization & Google Ads

Chris Fawcett, Founder/CEO – Third Marble Marketing - has focused on helping small/mid-size business (SMB) clients grow their enterprises with Google Ads … the only marketing solution he’s found to deliver immediate, scalable results to drive new business. Since 2009, TMM demonstrates proven expertise to maximize the marketing spend by ensuring that ads, keywords and websites are built to attract the right audience … and trigger a call to action that converts visitors to customers. Read on to learn how TMM may be a “fit” to enhance your revenue results in the New Year.

CIO Review Magazine – “2020 Most Promising Google Marketing Companies”

Fawcett shares how TMM streamlines marketing for SMBs based on a clearly stated strategy … “find the nearest product/service provider who can cater to the needs of the online user”. TMM fills the marketing void experienced by most SMBs …lack of internal marketing skills and resources. Clients are not locked-in to a contract and an account manager immediately goes to work to determine objectives and get the marketing ball rolling. A common result reported in the article … “We often see quality traffic going to a client’s website even before we brainstorm a strategy with them”. Don’t miss the brief case study of a small business client who profits from a 400% boost in ROI!

Business Talk Magazine – “The Most Disruptive Leaders 2021”

Chris counsels that today Google is the “go-to” source for consumers and SMB decision-makers seeking solutions to their needs. And they are not patient! More than three fourths of Google searchers never go past the first page of a Google search. Be sure to read the article to learn , “If your vision is to make your business a brand, you can’t afford to be on the second, third, or fourth page of Google search results. You just won’t meet the right audience to make any impact.”

Global Business Leaders Magazine – “Top 20 Leading Companies of 2021”

Third Marble Marketing is honored to be featured as one of the Top 20 Leading Companies of 2021. The foundation of that award is the consistent train of successes TMM delivers to SMBs across the country with monthly budgets that range from $300 to $20,000+. In the words of the company’s Founder, Chris Fawcett, TMM is the resource to help SMBs grow their business by providing an affordable internet marketing strategy that generates customers … NOT “traffic”. Click here to learn the downside of having a website without advertising … no one ever bought anything they never heard of.

MirrorReview Magazine – “10 Best Google Solution Providers of 2021”

Third Marble Marketing is a digital marketing firm that offers affordable and effective Google Ads management and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) solutions to local small-scale businesses. In addition to the award featured here, TMM is a highly rated company earning five stars on the Google My Business platform. Click here for what clients say … and learn about TMM’s ‘White Label’ services for website designers, marketing consultants, media buyers, and publishers.

ADReview Magazine – “The Efficient Digital Agency”

In this age of challenges triggered by C-19, be sure to read how Chris Fawcett and his Team have successfully weathered the storm … building an efficient digital agency during the pandemic . He shares “nuggets” of insight that relates to innovation, team-building, process improvement and facing the issues head-on.

Third Marble Marketing … Committed to Improving Online Marketing ROI

Our team at Third Marble is constantly striving to find the most cost-effective ways to improve our clients' results organic and pay per click placements on Google. Increase your marketing effectiveness by hiring an entire team of Google marketing experts, instead of hiring new staff or adding Google to your already long list of duties. Schedule an introductory call today to talk more about our Google Ads management or SEO services today!

Click Fraud Scammers

Thu, 12 Aug 2021 16:09:07 GMT

How to Protect Your Pay-Per-Click Budget

What’s Click Fraud? How Are Entrepreneurs Hurt?

As a small business owner, you have plenty of challenges to deal with to ensure your success … and now another threat to your profitability has raised its ugly head – Click Fraud .

In a nutshell, click fraud occurs when an Internet bandit pretends to be a legitimate visitor to your website. Their objective is financial gain at your expense. The most common attack is to target your PPC (pay-per-click) ads with fraudulent clicks that drive traffic to PPC display ads on web pages located on the thief’s website. Net result … you get charged by the network for visits to the bad-guy’s cyber-store.

Bots ... the Multiplier Effect

This con would be bad enough if the perpetrators were individual “click-workers”. But the reality is that “bots” technology is typically employed to turbo-charge the frequency and severity of attacks.

A bot is a software program designed to perform repetitive tasks on the Internet. Bots operate faster than humans performing the same tedious task. To further ensure perception that the bot clicks are initiated by a live person, bots are programmed to mimic human-like actions, e.g. mouse movements, random pauses between clicks and so forth.

Click fraudsters’ campaigns will typically install bots on a number of devices … each with its own IP Address … Internet Protocol numbers assigned to every device accessing the internet. Bot traffic from just one machine would prove easy to detect and block and thus stifle the ruse perpetrated by the scammers.

Click Fraud Skews ROI Measures for Your PPC Budget

Bot activity on your website will be registered in your website analytics data. That means you are presented with inaccuracies in the effectiveness of your display ad campaigns. You want to know the specifics of behavior by legitimate visitors to your website as it relates to how well your content is engaging your target audiences … including click-through rates and conversions. Click fraud denies access by you to this critical analysis of how well your advertising dollars are being spent.

Bottom Line

Click fraud will cost you money … unless you take steps to stop the bandits in their tracks.

How much? Certainly, hundreds of dollars … perhaps thousands or more.

Click fraud will waste 20% of PPC advertisers’ budgets in 2021 … avoid becoming a victim!

Click Fraud Prevention ... Third Marble Marketing - ClickCease™ Protection Partnership

Third Marble has proudly “partnered” with ClickCease Protection … top-rated developer and provider of click fraud protection software. Your payoff … prevention of fraudulently initiated clicks from bots and even your competitors seeking a short-cut to out-perform your company in Google searches.

ClickCease™ Google Ads click fraud protection software will exclude invalid IPs and block fake clicks. This will boost the ROI of your PPC campaigns by:

Reducing your cost per click;
Accelerating conversions from website visitor to paying customer;
Dropping your cost per conversion.

Here are summaries of two ClickCease™ small business case studies. You’ll be impressed with the positive results enjoyed by each entrepreneur.

Client 1: ClickCease™ set up on March 20,2021

30 Days Prior To ClickCease™Set Up:

30 Days Following ClickCease™ Set-up:

(roughly the same budget)

- Cost per click reduced by 7.5% - Conversions more than tripled - Cost per conversion slashed by nearly 75%! -

Client 2: ClickCease™ set up on March 20,2021

30 Days Prior To ClickCease™Set Up:

30 Days Following ClickCease™ Set-up:

(roughly the same budget)

- Cost per click reduced by 7.5% - Conversions up 250% - Cost per conversion slashed by nearly two-thirds! -

Click here , if you choose to see graphic representations of the results delivered in these two case studies.

Third Marble Marketing … Click Fraud Prevention Due Diligence

At TMM we constantly strive to find ever-better ways to improve our clients’ results in SEO and maximizing their advertising dollars. We are not hampered by a not-invented-here mindset. Rather, we search for developments and resources that promise to deliver superior customer experience for our clients.

At TMM, we are diligent in researching and reviewing potential strategic partnerships. Such was the case in considering our current relationship with ClickCease™. We anticipated that our clients will want answers to, “Do I need this? Will it really make a positive financial impact on my business?”

So, we are particularly pleased to report two 80% statistics relating to our client accounts that signed on for ClickCease™ with Third Marble Marketing … 80% of our clients realized an 80% improvement in their Google Ads Accounts.

For sure, it’s worth your while to take a look at signing on for ClickCease™ with Third Marble Marketing. You’ll enjoy amazingly affordable pricing … a one-time set-up fee of $200. That’s all … no ongoing TMM fees to maximize your protection from click fraud marauders.

A COVID Comeback

Mon, 07 Jun 2021 15:16:29 GMT

At the beginning of 2020, Suzanne Hayzlett’s business, SET Cleaning , was thriving. SET Cleaning had 28 employees and a loyal customer base. By the end of March, however, Suzanne was concerned about COVID-19, and the safety of her employees and her customers.

As they were creating and implementing COVID safety practices, SET Cleaning began receiving calls from customers to suspend their services. Customers were fearful of having anyone in their home, even with the new safety protocols in place.

“ What am I going to do with all of my employees?”

Trying to balance what was right for her customers and her employees, Suzanne found herself in a position that she never wanted to be in – closing her doors. Further, Suzanne accepted the best thing she could do for her employees was to lay them off and help them with the unemployment process, while praying that she would be able to hire them back soon.

As she began to contact her customers to advise that SET Cleaning would shut down temporarily, some of her customers told her that she could not quit on them. Some customers even took it a step further that they would find another cleaning service if she shut down. Suzanne remembers thinking, “Oh, boy! How are we gonna do this?” Luckily, a few employees wanted to continue working, even if it wasn’t much, instead of filing for unemployment.

Armed with 6 employees and determination, Suzanne kept SET Cleaning open. She soon discovered that the impact of COVID extended past her employees and her customers. It also affected the supply of cleaning products.

SET Cleaning had always used environmentally-friendly products. Once the shortage of supplies hit, however, Suzanne and her team began making their own cleaning products.

During April and May, Suzanne estimates that SET Cleaning was operating with approximately 20% of the business that she had the year prior. Spring is usually the busiest time of the year for cleaning companies. Suzanne recalls looking in her parking lot, full of SET Cleaning cars that were not being used. “It was a little rough,” she admits. “I had to formulate a Plan B, a Plan C, D, and E. At one point, I was concerned that I would have to start selling one of the cars each month just to keep the business floating.”

Suzanne didn’t give up. She checked in routinely with her customers. “I wanted to see how they were and to let them know of everything that we were doing to help them when they were ready.”

By May, Suzanne had a spike in the number of clients that wanted to reestablish their cleaning services. Suzanne thought this was the breakthrough that she needed. She contacted many of her former employees, only to find that many did not want to return to work.

In the midst of this, Chris Fawcett from Third Marble Marketing reached out to Suzanne for a routine call. Suzanne had been a client of Third Marble Marketing for years. Suzanne recalls that she was frustrated at that time, because she had tried to find employees without any luck. She remembers telling Chris, “I don’t need you…I need employees.”

Suzanne figured that was the end of the call. But instead, Chris offered her a solution.

Chris proposed that Third Marble Marketing help her run Google ads for recruiting purposes instead of running Google ads for her services. Chris was willing to try something unconventional to help her solve her problem. Suzanne was thrilled with the idea.

Third Marble Marketing implemented a recruiting ads campaign for SET Cleaning around early June. After weeks of pursuing leads on employment websites and social media postings, Suzanne finally found qualified candidates for the positions she needed through Google ads.

By September, the number of employees at SET Cleaning had doubled, as well as her customer base.

Third Marble Marketing has continued to help Suzanne focus her ads for customers in her service area. Today, Suzanne has 21 employees, almost the same number that she did before COVID hit.

“Thanks to Third Marble … they made the biggest impact on my business through advertising, from getting new employees to getting new customers.”

Suzanne’s advice to other companies is straightforward: Collaborate with other companies, and trust Third Marble Marketing.

Suzanne encourages other business owners to utilize their network. “Talk to your competitors,” she says. “Pick up the phone and get advice.” Suzanne has stayed in touch with her competitors and a network of cleaning professionals across the country, even referring some to Third Marble Marketing. Suzanne also found support with her BNI group, where she initially met Chris.

“It was important to motivate each other, especially when you see other businesses around you falling apart.”

As far as Third Marble Marketing, Suzanne is grateful for Chris’s call that day. “There were days that I was ready to give up.” Suzanne feels confident in Third Marble Marketing to help her in the future, as Chris demonstrated the willingness to think outside the box. “I’m very happy with Third Marble.”

SET Cleaning is located at 2927 Anderson Highway in Powhatan, and currently serves customers in Powhatan, Midlothian, and Moseley.

Google Ads Pricing – PAY-PER-CLICK

Mon, 07 Jun 2021 15:15:34 GMT

How Much Does a Click Cost? … It Depends!

OK … the title of this article captured your attention … only to find out that there is no one-size-fits-all answer to the question of Google Ads pricing which then determines your cost. Stay with us and all will quickly become clear, plus you’ll learn how to budget and manage your Google Ads campaigns.

You are either a current Google Ads customer or considering a “toe-in-the-water”. There’s plenty of valuable nuggets for both business owner/manager profiles, so be sure to read on. As a “teaser” … Google claims the average Google Ads advertiser reaps an ROI of two dollars for every dollar invested. That’s potentially a double-your-money impact on your business!

Note: If you’re running your own Google Ads, consider our FREE Google Ads Audit .

What Is Google Ads?

Google Ads is Google’s pay-per-click advertising platform. As an advertiser, you can create advertisements and determine how much you’re willing to pay every time an internet seeker for your offerings clicks on your ad.

Since the scope of this article is Google Ads pricing, the operative words to focus on are “pay-per-click”. The “click” refers to when a Google searcher clicks on your ad and visits your website. Note: You only pay when your ad triggers a visit to your website.

The price of each click is determined by an auction process based on keywords and phrases featured in your ad. Many companies bidding for the same phrase drives the cost per click up … with the opposite effect when only a few companies bid.

Google’s auction system reflects real-time pricing, so depending on the amount of bidding activity your cost per click may vary virtually moment to moment. When your bid for a keyword is higher than other advertisers, you win … your ad will appear at the top of the search results and look similar to this.

Important! You’re the boss when it comes to budget! You can set daily, monthly and campaign budget limits.

Now a word about Strategy . Ultimately, the effectiveness of your pay-per-click advertising will be driven by your strategic plan to achieve your advertising objectives. To use an aeronautical metaphor, your attention must be to ensure all your advertising aircraft are flying in formation.

You’ll have a good strategy when you coordinate:

Targeted set of keywords and phrases;
Well-written ads
Functional, up-to-date website.

Any disconnect in these three critical factors will negatively affect your Google Ads ROI.

The 6 Drivers of Google Ads Pricing

There are 5 Drivers that will determine your experience with both Google Ads pricing as well as the effectiveness of your pay-per-click advertising. Here’s a list of the Drivers … followed by more definition of each.

Industry
For Local Businesses - Location
Customer Lifecycle
Current Trends
Keywords
Google Ads Auction

Industry

Your industry is the primary factor that will determine your Google Ads cost. Industries with advertisers that are highly competitive in choosing keywords will drive up the cost per click for all advertisers. Depending on your industry, location, and competition, keywords can cost as low as a few cents … or as much as a couple hundred dollars.

Among the most competitive industries are law, accounting, insurance and finance. While some keywords may cost $100 or more per click, the conversion rate of website visitors to customers is dramatic … with significant generation of revenue. In contrast, less competitive industries will cost less and generate substantially less income for each new customer.

So, if your industry is one requiring you to compete for high value keywords, you’ll spend more per click … and likely be rewarded with the potential for an impressive ROI.

Take a look at cost-per-click (CPC) industry differences during 2020.

Average Google Ads CPCs by industry (search only, excludes display and YouTube ads):

Compare the average CPC for the top 3:

Insurance: $18.57
Online education: $14.04
Marketing and advertising: $7.40

With the bottom 3:

Pharmaceuticals: $1.24
Fashion retail: $1.19
Electronics: $0.83

The differences reflect the industry level of competitiveness and financial payoff of conversions.

For Local Businesses – Location

Local Businesses are those seeking to attract prime customers within a reasonable driving distance of their company’s location, say 20 miles. That commercial focus on a concentrated geographical location may prompt variations in the per-click cost of Google Ads. Consider two scenarios.

In an ideal world, your business would be the only one of its kind in your preferred marketplace. Given that unlikely scenario, you may be the only Google Ads advertiser of your product/service offerings. So, in the absence of competitive advertisers, you would enjoy very affordable cost-per-clicks.

Now for a more realistic scenario … say your world is populated with 100 competitors all advertising within 10 miles of your site. Those circumstances are likely to trigger fierce competition for your choices in keywords. And just as in the Industry competition discussed above, your cost-per-click trajectory will be driven skyward … often with significant velocity.

Click here to learn how Local Businesses can effectively compete in a crowded marketplace.

Customer Lifecycle

An important revelation from the industry analysis above is the nature of the lifecycle of your customer. Said another way, the bigger ticket sales usually require a longer decision-making process. That means you must remain top-of-mind to ensure that you are the vendor of choice when a buying decision is to be made.

Be prepared to expect multiple visits to your website, downloading information, participation in a webinar or requesting an online chat. This underscores the importance of your strategic plan.

You’ll have a good strategy when you coordinate:

Targeted set of keywords and phrases;
Well-written ads
Functional, up-to-date website.

Any disconnect in these three critical factors will negatively affect your Google Ads ROI.

Current Trends

Professional marketers agree, “The More Things Change … The More They Keep Changing”! And that’s particularly critical when it comes to staying on top of the keyword searches most likely to drive traffic and deliver qualified buyers to your website.

Google offers a free tool that takes the guesswork out of determining regional differences in phrase preference, as well as keywords that are growing in popularity. You can view whether a trend is on the rise or declining. You can also find demographic insights, related topics, and related queries to help you better understand the search trends.

An added plus is your ability to compare how keyword volume may fluctuate over a given timeframe … a measure of the search term’s competitiveness. That is particularly valuable to discover event-triggered spikes like seasonality of demand … as well as unpredictable changes in consumer behavior driven by such things as the current pandemic.

Understanding and mastering its use will add significant power to you maintaining and increasing your visibility when the buying public searches for what you deliver.

Keywords

Google Ads pricing is primarily influenced by your commercial offering coupled with industry competition for your preferred keywords. Overall, the average Google Ads CPC is $1 to $2. However, as discussed above, in highly competitive markets clicks bear a “sportier” price tag. Take a look at this visual representation of the most expensive keywords in Google Ads.

Here’s a list ranking the most expensive keyword categories in Google Ads, and the average cost-per-click of each. It’s worth noting that these are keyword categories , not actual keywords themselves —in some cases, the CPCs of keywords within each category may be higher than the averages stated:

Insurance - $54.91
Loans - $44.28
Mortgage - $47.12
Attorney - $47.07
Credit - $36.06
Lawyer - $42.51
Donate - $42.02
Degree - $40.61
Hosting - $31.91
Claim - $45.51
Conference call - $42.05
Trading - $33.19
Software - $35.29
Recovery - $42.03
Transfer - $29.86

Take a look at the following two examples of the power in knowing what keyword is likely to deliver superior results … web developer over web designer … lawn care near me trumps landscapers near me .

OK … now for a more in-depth look … first click here … then read and follow-up by clicking here .

Google Ads Auction

OK … this is not actually how a Google Ads auction is conducted, but worth a 2-minute break from learning about Google Ads pricing and cost per click.

Now back to work! As the word “auction” implies, Google Ads functions essentially like an in-person auction. Here’s a summary of the process.

When an internet searcher types a word or phrase into the Google search bar, Google automatically reviews the entry to see if the query includes keywords. If “yes”, it checks to see if Google Ads advertisers are actively bidding on one or more of the keywords. The presence of competing bidders will initiate the ad auction.

The next step is a calculation by Google that rank-orders the contending ads to fix the Ad Rank of each. That will determine if and at what level your ad will be placed on the paid results page. See the graphic below for the calculation that governs your Ad Rank position.

Based on your Quality Score and Ad Rand, Google determines how much you’ll pay each time someone clicks on one of your ads. Hang in for one more calculation routine.

Interesting to Note: In this instance Advertiser 1 pays less than Advertiser 4 plus enjoys a higher Ad Rank position due to a superior Quality Score. Thanks to the Google Ads auction algorithm, small-budget businesses may advertise just as effectively on Google as deep-pockets companies.

Without “getting into the weeds”, several other variables have some impact on your Ad Rank and ad spend. That said, your CPC Bid and Quality Score are the primary drivers.

TAKEAWAYS

Here are the key points to keep in mind:

Google Ads Pricing fluctuates from industry to industry.
There are 5 Drivers of Google Ads Pricing: 1) Industry, 2) Customer Lifecycle, 3) Current Trends, 4) Keywords, 5) Google Ads Auction.
Choice of keywords are critical to maximize your ROI.

Next Steps

Clearly, you must at least consider Google Ads as a cornerstone of your marketing spend. It’s a proven platform for businesses of any size and scope encompassing virtually all industry groups. Google claims the average Google Ads advertiser reaps an ROI of two dollars for every dollar invested. That’s a double-your-money impact on your business!

There are credible reports of multiples of this level of profitability … so what’s not to like? Worst case you may have to test your ad content to fine-tune a successful campaign. That said, remember, you’re the boss when it comes to budget! You can set daily, monthly and campaign budget limits .

What Will You Do?

Now your choices are do-it-yourself or invest in third-party expertise with a proven track-record of success. When it comes to DIY, it’s likely you are already wearing several hats as a business owner … adding yet another marketing responsibility is probably not a workable option.

Having read this far, you are either a current Google Ads customer or considering “testing the waters”.

If you’re running your own Google Ads, consider our FREE Google Ads Audit

Third Marble picked as a Top Digital Marketing Company by DesignRush

chris@thirdmarblemarketing.com (Chris Fawcett) — Mon, 29 Mar 2021 16:02:00 GMT

DesignRush chooses Third Marble as one of the best Digital Marketing companies.

We would like to thank DesignRush for picking us as one of the top digital marketing companies in Richmond, VA.

Free Tips To Save Your SEO!

chris@thirdmarblemarketing.com (Chris Fawcett) — Fri, 19 Mar 2021 18:15:20 GMT

JUST WHEN YOUR WEBSITE SEEMS FINE-TUNED

Now You Need to Measure User-Experience

The Google-World-of-Algorithms is a perpetual evolution machine. Understanding and accepting that as an ongoing experience is essential to maintain your position on the SEO Curve … that means maintaining and enhancing your Google rankings.

So, we are less than 60 days away from a new ranking factor that measures users’ page experience on your website. The three measurement-metrics are called the Web Vitals :

Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)
First Input Delay, and (FID)
Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)

Together, they are the “three-legged stool” of support for Google’s page experience update … performance, responsiveness and visual stability . These additions to Google’s existing algorithms will be launched in May of this year. That means time is of the essence to prepare and capitalize on the updates plus protect your SEO competitive advantage.

As a quick look in the SEO rear-view mirror, optimizing the performance of websites was essentially a mission to optimize for speed in content loading times to boost conversion rates . While both objectives remain critical, each is now a part of the user-experience equation. Google now seeks to define and measure a more elusive - even abstract - factor in determining ideal optimizations … how a user experiences those enhancements .

According to Google, “Great page experiences enable people to get more done and engage more deeply; in contrast, a bad page experience could stand in the way of a person being able to find the valuable information on a page.”

Web Vitals in Profile

OK, now back to the Web Vitals … performance, responsiveness and visual stability with a bit more detail.

The “Readers Digest” explanation comes down to:

Performance … the users’ feel of speed that content loads appear on screen

Responsiveness … speed of page reaction to user input

Visual stability … ideally content doesn’t move around on the screen while loading

A more robust description includes:

LCP, or Largest Contentful Paint : This metric tells how long it takes for the largest content element to load, e.g. an image or a block of text. High marks are earned when users feel that the site loads fast. In contrast, a slow site yields visitor frustration.
FID, or First Input Delay : The first interaction with the site by a user is the “moment-of-truth” in measuring how long it takes the browser to respond. For instance, this may be triggered by clicking a button. A feeling that the site is quick to react earns a positive user experience. Once again, slow equals frustration.
CLS, or Cumulative Layout Shift : Talk about user frustrations … click a button and a slow-loading ad pops up rather than the expected content. This new metric measures the percentage of the screen affected by stuff jumping around on the screen.

So, these new metrics will be combined with existing experience-ranking factors including:

Mobile-friendliness
HTTPS: url demonstrates a secure connection
Interstitial use: blocking annoying pop-ups
Safe browsing … harmless for visitors

Combined with the new real-world, user-centered metrics, these factors take into account everything a user experiences on a website to try to come up with an all-inclusive profile of the performance of your site.

Takeaways

Driving visitors to your website is an admirable goal … but not productive if the visit does not convert to one or another of your desired call-to-actions (CTA). To ensure conversion success, be sure to stay current with the latest Google algorithms … the newest about to be deployed in May.

A focused, continuing effort to optimize your local SEO is critical.

Now your choices are do-it-yourself or invest in a third-party, professional website design agency and SEO service for assistance. It is likely that you are already wearing several hats as a business owner and adding yet another marketing responsibility is probably not an option. So, an excellent guiding principle is found in the old saying, “Don’t Try This at Home!”

Why not rely on both an SEO resource plus your web design agency to successfully tackle these jobs?

Schedule An Appointment With Us Today To Discuss Your SEO Goals!

Top 5 Things To Look For In A Google Ads Management Company

chris@thirdmarblemarketing.com (Chris Fawcett) — Fri, 19 Feb 2021 18:58:47 GMT

EVERY BUSINESS OWNER WANTS TO RANK #1 ON GOOGLE

So, Who to Turn To … What to Insist On!

Small business owners and managers … you know the value of Google Ads to propel your business to be the vendor of choice when it comes to internet searches. That said, it’s a safe bet that you don’t have the time, and probably the expertise, to successfully manage the design, production and execution of the Pay-Per-Click success elements to ensure Page 1 ranking on Google Searches.

That means enlisting the aid of a proven resource to target people seeking your products and

measure your success … quantified by your ROI driven by closed business revenue.

In this article, we’ll share with you the 5-Step Checklist for Success to profile potential Google Ads/SEO vendor candidates to ensure you get the most bank for your buck backed by tangible evidence of results. Included for your ease in analyzing alternative contenders is a simple yet comprehensive tool that you will find valuable.

The 5-Steps are:

Meaningful Conversions
Client Transparency
Personalized Account Management
Comprehensive Monthly Reporting
Professional Credentials

(BTW, current Third Marble clients will recognize their consistent satisfaction as recipients of all 5 Steps.)

Meaningful Conversions

Your key concern must be whether the ads help your small business to grow.

The first thing to look for is success in driving quality traffic to your website. Your ads should be designed to attract only highly targeted prospects searching for your products and services in your geographic footprint. Quality traffic means enhanced conversion from visitor to customer.

Once a visitor lands on your site, you’ll want to be sure to know the number and quality of phone calls generated by the visit as well as completion of forms to receive more information about your offerings. That said, it’s critical to track true meaningful conversions . What does that mean?

First a word about what is not a meaningful conversion … “viewing the contact us” page. Unless the visitor actually takes action to contact your company, this action is meaningless.

Meaningful conversions are those that indicate genuine interest in your offerings. For example, a phone call that lasts at least 60 seconds is one that is likely to demonstrate seeking knowledge of your product or service. Less than a minute … could be a wrong number or folks asking for directions … both meaningless, not meaningful.

Another meaningful conversion would be evidence of a “Thank-you” page hit when a visitor fills out your Contact Us form. If someone takes the time to request more information … that’s a quality lead!

Proactive, capable Google Ads managers will track these meaningful metrics to monitor the effectiveness of your ad dollars and revise as needed to maximize your ROI.

Client Transparency

Your Google Ads Account is your account. That means you need to have access to it at your discretion. Your Google Ads management resource should offer to jointly access your current account, if you have one. Alternatively, a new account may be initiated providing for joint access by you and your Google Ads management team.

You will agree, that money is a key element in expecting complete vendor transparency. That means you must insist on detailed budget disclosure of how payment of your invoices is applied. Specifically, what is the breakdown of dollars that go toward Ads and those charged as management fees. Both expenses are necessary, but you should be able to judge the relative merits of each in attaining your ROI goals.

Our commitment to transparency at Third Marble is to have Google Ads charges sent directly to the client … and a separate invoice from our office that details our management fees. Total disclosure. Total transparency.

Personalized Account Management

Your business, and you as owner, must be served by an assigned Account Manager. Together, you’ll agree on quantifiable, measurable goals for your Google Ads campaign.

Ideally, your Google Ads management vendor will have in place a daily account reporting system with frequent monitoring by an optimization team review to gauge results.

When there are significant alerts that require campaign adjustments, those may not be ignored … one business day is the maximum time to wait for revisions. For example, if your website were to go down, Google will cease posting ads. Third Marble will monitor that alert and notify you to immediately seek assistance from your web developer.

Comprehensive Monthly Reporting

As is the case with most business decision-making … knowledge is essential. Daily reporting as described above is critical. Additionally, the following 3 elements should be highlighted in your monthly reports.

Copies of your ads
Activity: clicks, impressions, conversions & rates, top-performing key words, cost-per-click, click-through rates
Month to month comparison of performance

Professional Credentials

L ook for evidence of credibility, proof of ability to perform as promised and acknowledgement of professionalism by industry experts. At the risk of “blowing our own horn”, you may consider the following as an example of what to consider as you make your Google Ads/SEO manager choice … new or replacement.

Successful Pandemic Shifts - Midlothian Chef's Kitchen

katieb@thirdmarblemarketing.com (Katie Bonner) — Tue, 02 Feb 2021 17:07:13 GMT

Turning Lemons Into Lemonade – Midlothian Chef’s Kitchen’s Success by Angel Evitts

When COVID-19 hit this past spring, Chef David Dunlap’s esteemed position as Corporate Executive Chef at Quirk hotels was eliminated. David found himself contemplating if he could continue in his 20-year culinary career, or if he should return to a former career in the construction industry.

Luckily, the award-winning chef did what a chef of his stature would do. David took the sour circumstances caused by the pandemic and made his dreams come true – or as his family describes it – turning lemons into the best lemonade ever!

Shortly after his position at Quirk ended, David’s wife, Brittany, shared his story with Lizzie Morrow of Third Marble Marketing . Knowing David’s stellar reputation in the Virginia and DC areas, Lizzie knew that David shouldn’t give up on his dreams.

Brittany recalls, “[Lizzie] knew exactly what we needed to do and quickly formed a plan that would allow David to focus on staying in an industry he loves by offering private dinners and prepared meals.” David and Brittany signed up with Third Marble Marketing in June. Lizzie provided affordable, highly-effective Google Ads Management services, solid landing page advice to convert David’s website traffic into clients, and guidance for setting up the Google My Business page for Midlothian Chef’s Kitchen.

“Given the circumstances we faced back in May, we didn’t know what to do or what our options were,” says Brittany. “We love Midlothian and we love all the people here. Our kids love their schools and their friends. These circumstances finally gave David the kick in the butt he needed to pursue his dream of opening his own restaurant.”

David’s website traffic increased, and after a few months, David and Brittany signed a lease in October on a new restaurant, Midlothian Chef’s Kitchen.

Midlothian Chef’s Kitchen will be a full-service restaurant and bar with a warm, welcoming atmosphere with a chef-driven concept. “Our patrons will be encouraged to talk with David. Midlothian Chef’s Kitchen is going to be a place for people to dine, enjoy themselves, and to feel a sense of community.”

The restaurant will have a patio for outdoor dining with lights and heaters where patrons can enjoy dinner and happy hour specials. The restaurant will also offer cooking classes, family-friendly prepared meals, meals for dietary restrictions, weekend brunch, and other special events, such as beer and wine tasting dinners.

“We will also have a small marketplace inside the restaurant where people can shop. It will be stocked with David’s favorite products, his award-winning desserts from Broad Appetite, handmade dumplings, fresh-made pasta, soups, and much more!”

David’s story and willingness to trust in the advice of Third Marble is inspiring, particularly in this time of uncertainty. “We love Third Marble Marketing. We trust the entire team. They are helping us to grow our business in 2020 and beyond. The return on our investment with them has been phenomenal and we are getting to see our dream of opening our own restaurant come true.”

Midlothian Chef’s Kitchen opens in January 2021, and it is located at 11501 Busy Street in North Chesterfield, Virginia.

Special thanks to our friend, Angel Evitts at The Bonus Writer , for writing up this lovely story about our friends at Midlothian Chef’s Kitchen. Be sure to visit her website if you need any website copy written or edited on your website!

Google My Business Tips

Fri, 11 Dec 2020 15:47:00 GMT

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Optimize Your Local SEO

Wed, 11 Nov 2020 20:58:00 GMT

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HVAC Landing Page Case Study

Thu, 15 Oct 2020 14:04:00 GMT

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Website Check Up For Conversions

Mon, 12 Oct 2020 13:46:00 GMT

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Google Trends – Market Research & Planning

Fri, 04 Sep 2020 18:50:00 GMT

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Is Your Mobile Landing Page Converting Visitors to Clients?

Fri, 31 Jul 2020 21:16:00 GMT

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Offer for SWaM Certified Businesses

Fri, 31 Jul 2020 19:07:00 GMT

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Google Trends Helps You Find the Right Keywords

Fri, 24 Jul 2020 17:10:00 GMT

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How To Increase Your Marketing Efforts With Google

Wed, 10 Jun 2020 15:45:00 GMT

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Small To Medium Business Financial Support During COVID-19

Wed, 08 Apr 2020 16:30:00 GMT

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Marketing During COVID-19

Wed, 08 Apr 2020 16:25:00 GMT

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Google Ads Display Ad Overview

Wed, 11 Mar 2020 15:43:00 GMT

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Third Marble Makes SEOBlog’s Top 100 List

Wed, 11 Mar 2020 15:18:00 GMT

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Third Marble Ribbon Cutting

Tue, 10 Mar 2020 16:49:00 GMT

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Competitor Targeting With Google Display Ads

Mon, 17 Feb 2020 15:00:00 GMT

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The Power of Remarketing Ads

Wed, 22 Jan 2020 16:55:00 GMT

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HOW DISPLAY ADS ARE STRUCTURED

Mon, 30 Dec 2019 18:44:00 GMT

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Display Ad Targeting 1/5

Fri, 25 Oct 2019 17:49:00 GMT

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More PPC Leads At A Lower Cost For Worker’s Comp Lawyer Case Study

Tue, 22 Oct 2019 21:32:00 GMT

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More PPC Leads At A Lower Cost For Worker’s Comp Lawyer Case Study

Tue, 22 Oct 2019 21:32:00 GMT

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Case Study – Understanding Geo Intent

Tue, 22 Oct 2019 21:13:00 GMT

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Third Marble’s Ten Year Anniversary

Mon, 30 Sep 2019 18:32:00 GMT

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How SEO Affects Your PPC Ads

Mon, 30 Sep 2019 16:29:00 GMT

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Third Marble Named #1 SEO Agency In Richmond

Thu, 12 Sep 2019 19:23:00 GMT

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SEO Or PPC … Not An Either-Or Decision

Mon, 26 Aug 2019 22:12:00 GMT

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Is Your Google My Business Page Under Attack?

Tue, 02 Jul 2019 19:25:00 GMT

The post Is Your Google My Business Page Under Attack? appeared first on Third Marble Marketing .

More PPC Leads At A Lower Cost For Boutique Real Estate Agency Case Study

Fri, 07 Jun 2019 18:36:00 GMT

The post More PPC Leads At A Lower Cost For Boutique Real Estate Agency Case Study appeared first on Third Marble Marketing .

Google’s Algorithm Update on Relevance – June 3rd, 2019

Wed, 05 Jun 2019 16:03:00 GMT

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Website Conversion Rate II

Tue, 28 May 2019 16:40:00 GMT

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WEBSITE CONVERSION RATE

Mon, 22 Apr 2019 19:20:00 GMT

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YMYL

Thu, 14 Mar 2019 13:27:00 GMT

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6 Reasons Why You Need a Digital Media Strategy

chris@thirdmarblemarketing.com (Chris Fawcett) — Wed, 13 Mar 2019 14:51:40 GMT

Everyone needs a digital media strategy, and not for the reasons you may expect. In fact, if you think digital strategies are just promotional, think again.

#1 Most Important Part of Your Campaign

chris@thirdmarblemarketing.com (Chris Fawcett) — Wed, 13 Mar 2019 14:50:46 GMT

If you think money is the only thing that matters in your campaign, think again. There are many more things to think about.

Notes from the Other Side

chris@thirdmarblemarketing.com (Chris Fawcett) — Wed, 13 Mar 2019 14:49:26 GMT

Always wondered what happens on the other side of your campaign. Well, now you’re going to find out.

Why Technology isn't Enough for Your Digital Campaign

chris@thirdmarblemarketing.com (Chris Fawcett) — Wed, 13 Mar 2019 14:48:21 GMT

Just because you have a snazzy Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat campaign doesn’t mean you’re covered.

10 Reasons You Should Love Blogging

chris@thirdmarblemarketing.com (Chris Fawcett) — Wed, 13 Mar 2019 14:43:18 GMT

Blog posts are a great way to get recognized within your community and share your voice. Here are the top 10 reasons you should love writing blog posts.

Anyone can make one:
For better or worse, anyone can write a blog post about anything they want. Everyone has a voice and thet voices will rise to the top.

The writer can show their personality:
In blog posts, the writer has more leeway to add in their voice and personality than other types of writing.

Blogs are a great form of mass communication:
You can help people, learn new things, entertain your audience-the possibilities are endless and amazing. Blogging opens up all of these to a very wide audience.

You can make money:
Get the right blog going and you can make a lot of money through advertising and sponsored posts.

It allows people to craft better thoughts:
Instead of reading haphazard, uneducated Facebook statuses, it's much better to see people's thought process in a well-written blog post.

You can establish a community:
Blogging allows you to connect with other individuals who share the same interests. Sharing ideas and opinions within your community helps establish yourself as a thought leader.

Good for SEO:
Keeping content on your site fresh and relevant, you can use your blog to boost the search engine ranking (SEO) of your site and your business.

It brings people back to your site:
If your blog is strong enough and updated regularly, people will come back looking for more and bring traffic back to your site as well.

It's free:
It costs you a grand total of zero dollars to post to the blog, so if you have something to say, there's nothing to stop you.

You can establish yourself as a thought leader:
A blog is a great place for your original thoughts, and it can be a wonderful way to show off your individuality. If people like your ideas, you can become a thought leader in your industry!

What else do you love about blogs? Let me know!

SEO and AI (Artificial Intelligence)

Mon, 25 Feb 2019 12:56:00 GMT

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Mobile Page Speed and SEO

Mon, 28 Jan 2019 21:19:00 GMT

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GMB Tips

Mon, 28 Jan 2019 18:45:00 GMT

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SMALL BUSINESS OWNERS BE ON PAGE 1

Mon, 17 Dec 2018 19:03:00 GMT

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3 REASONS NOT TO BOTHER WITH SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION

Mon, 29 Oct 2018 17:00:00 GMT

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SEO and Artificial Intelligence

Fri, 21 Sep 2018 12:58:00 GMT

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Marketing Jobs in Midlothian VA

Mon, 27 Aug 2018 19:35:00 GMT

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GOOGLE “SPEED UPDATE”

Thu, 23 Aug 2018 15:14:00 GMT

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Gather Online Reviews on Google

Thu, 14 Jun 2018 12:00:00 GMT

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Getting Google Reviews

Tue, 15 May 2018 19:49:00 GMT

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NATIONAL SMALL BUSINESS WEEK

Thu, 03 May 2018 17:18:00 GMT

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Why Google Doesn’t Love Your Business

Tue, 01 May 2018 13:19:00 GMT

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The Marriage of SEO and PPC

Tue, 17 Apr 2018 19:23:00 GMT

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SEO STRATEGIES. STATIC OR EVOLVING?

Tue, 20 Mar 2018 00:26:00 GMT

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Businesses Who Want to Show Up on Page One

Mon, 26 Feb 2018 13:04:00 GMT

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Delivering on “I Want It Now” Marketing

Tue, 23 Jan 2018 21:57:00 GMT

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Third Marble is sponsoring an artist!

Mon, 23 Oct 2017 18:13:00 GMT

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Set Up Your Own AdWords Account in 5 Easy Steps

Wed, 20 Sep 2017 15:48:00 GMT

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Set Up Your Own AdWords Account in 5 Easy Steps

Wed, 20 Sep 2017 15:48:00 GMT

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DIY Tips and Tricks From The Google Guy

Thu, 04 May 2017 15:04:00 GMT

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Voted Top 10 Best PPC Management Agency

Thu, 27 Apr 2017 22:00:00 GMT

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Google Penalty for Pop-Ups and Interstitials on Mobile

Sat, 11 Feb 2017 15:44:00 GMT

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Google Penalty for Pop-Ups and Interstitials on Mobile

Sat, 11 Feb 2017 15:44:00 GMT

The post Google Penalty for Pop-Ups and Interstitials on Mobile appeared first on Third Marble Marketing .

Google AdWords – New Store Visitor Tracking Feature

Mon, 23 Jan 2017 13:35:00 GMT

Coming soon – Google AdWords will be able to track your store traffic driven by AdWords. Retail locations, such as restaurants, dentists, mechanics, grocery stores and banks, have a major issue with AdWords. It’s nearly impossible to track conversions and prove an ROI. Most AdWords conversion tracking involves either visiting a particular web page or […]

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Unlock the SEO Power of Facebook in 2 Minutes.

Sun, 15 Jan 2017 20:21:00 GMT

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Google My Business Case Study (sort of)

Wed, 11 Jan 2017 00:47:00 GMT

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Google My Business Case Study (sort of)

Wed, 11 Jan 2017 00:47:00 GMT

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Small Business Marketing Questions for 2017

Thu, 05 Jan 2017 00:58:00 GMT

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Online Reviews Are Important for Local Businesses

Thu, 22 Dec 2016 18:19:00 GMT

“How can online reviews affect my local business?”

People use the online reviews to make decisions about local businesses and other products and services. Make sure your reviews are helping sell your business, not hurting it.

Have you ever bought anything on Amazon without reading the online reviews first? Not likely. That’s because reviews are not written by the company, they’re written by the users of the products or services. Not that everybody trusts online reviews as the only factor in a buying decision, but they certainly can sway a person to choose one company over another.

In Google Maps, online reviews are important for several reasons.

How many people read the online reviews for local businesses?

An industry leading SEO firm, BrightLocal, conducted a survey to see how important online reviews were to people that were searching for an online business. Here is a summary chart of the responses form 2010 to 2015 to the question “Do you read online reviews to determine whether a local business is a good business?”:

You can see that in 2010, 29% of the responses indicated that they do not read online reviews when researching local businesses. In 2015, that number dropped to 8%.

Said another way, 92% of people use online reviews to determine if your business is a good business.

If you don’t have online reviews, but your competitors do, how will people judge your business? Will you get 92% fewer calls? Food for thought.

We hope this helps!

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Digital Assistants and SEO for Local Businesses

Wed, 07 Dec 2016 00:28:00 GMT

How Digital Assistants are Affecting Your Search Results

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Website Page Load Times Affect Local Google Search Results

Tue, 22 Nov 2016 12:48:00 GMT

For small, local business owners, having a mobile-ready website that loads quickly is vital to staying on top of local search results and attracting new customers. Consumers Are Impatient While three seconds does not sound like a long time, mobile shoppers who have limited data plans are not going to wait for more than three […]

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Website Page Load Times Affect Local Google Search Results

Tue, 22 Nov 2016 12:48:00 GMT

For small, local business owners, having a mobile-ready website that loads quickly is vital to staying on top of local search results and attracting new customers.

Consumers Are Impatient

While three seconds does not sound like a long time, mobile shoppers who have limited data plans are not going to wait for more than three to four seconds while a slow loading website renders. When people become impatient, they hit the back button and move on to a competitor’s website, which gives slow loading mobile websites a high bounce rate.

Google Rewards Fast Loading Websites On Mobile Searches

Wanting to give users the best possible experience, Google rewards websites that load quickly with a higher position in local searches. Google’s mobile best practices suggest mobile sites should load content above the fold in one second on 3G networks. To meet the one second goal, Google created AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) open-source framework, where Google caches pages on their server, producing lightening fast page loads.

What’s A Small Business Owner To Do?

As larger companies adopt AMP, users expect every website to load quickly on their mobile device, leaving small local business owners who depend on business from local searches scrambling make their sites load faster, while including the interactive features that visitors expect. Google offers actionable recommendations for page load optimization, including:

A fast loading mobile-friendly website is key to ranking near the top of Google’s local search results, however, a great user experience is necessary to keep visitors on the site long enough to convert. Since many load speed optimizations are complex, local business owners typically turn to web developers to amp up their website load speed without impairing the user’s experience.

How Can I Test My Page Load Time?

Simple. Just go to Pingdom and enter the URL for the page you want to test:

https://tools.pingdom.com/

The post Website Page Load Times Affect Local Google Search Results appeared first on Third Marble Marketing .

Possum Update – The Latest Google Update for Local Businesses

Fri, 30 Sep 2016 15:30:00 GMT

The “Possum Update” and How It Affects Local Search Results Seeing changes in your Google My Business search results? Here’s why… In early September 2016, Google rolled-out an update to their core search algorithm that affects local search results and the page position of your Google My Business results on Maps and the “Local 3-Pack” […]

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Google My Business Verification Postcards

Fri, 20 May 2016 17:06:00 GMT

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Add Manager Google My Business

Thu, 19 May 2016 19:36:00 GMT

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Why should I hire an AdWords Management company?

Fri, 05 Feb 2016 12:52:00 GMT

Is hiring Third Marble this more beneficial than just going straight to Google?

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Google AdWords Click Fraud

Fri, 05 Feb 2016 12:45:00 GMT

My question is if one competitor wanted to kill my ads, couldn’t they just click it maximum amount of times and I would pay for nothing?

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How Do the Google Home Services Ads Work?

Thu, 12 Nov 2015 19:35:00 GMT

The New Google Home Services Ads Can Help Your Business Grow!

Google invents a new way for Home Services to connect with customers – right in the Google Search Results.

All contractors and home services know about Angies List and how they have enabled customers to connect with their paying contractors right on their website. Well Google has recently launched a similar concept – but easier. Currently in San Francisco, Google has launched a beta-test of their Home Services Ads. Here’s how they work:

How Do the Google Home Services Ads Work?

First – A customer searches Google for a home service (such as a painter, pest control service, maid service, HVAC service,etc..). In this screen shot below, they are searching for “House cleaners in San Jose”. At the top of the page, Google displays the maid services in the San Jose area that have been pre-qualified and approved by Google to appear in the Home Services Ads.

When this person searched for “House Cleaners in San Jose”, three “Home Services” Ads appeared at the top of Page One.

Google’s objective is to put ads from trustworthy local handymen, house cleaners, locksmiths, plumbers and other local services in front of people who are looking to find these services and book them quickly. By putting these listings at the top of the page, Google hopes to not only make it extremely easy to contact these businesses, but also hopes the Home Services Ads will become a sort of “badge of trust” for consumers and home owners. (Reading between the lines – put Angie’s List out of business.)

When this person clicks on “Sweety’s Dream Clean”, the next thing they will see is a profile page of Sweety’s including the Google reviews and other trust building information:

There are two panels – one for the contact information and one for the reviews. (If you aren’t actively asking your customers for Google reviews, please implement a review strategy soon.)

In the upper right is a “Send Request” button. when you click this, a new window appears that allows you to enter you contact information to request a call or email from the business owner.

This information goes to the business owner via email and text. The consumer can also easily send this information to several businesses with a couple of clicks.

The consumer then gets a message confirming the request has been sent:

This is the confirmation that your information has been sent to the local businesses you selected.

And the local business owner gets a text on their cell phone letting them know a new lead has just been submitted via Google’s Home Services Ads:

Get your red hot leads right in your phone.

This should be a huge help to local businesses that want to get more leads from Google. They have certainly made it easier for consumers to get in touch with you.

At the moment, we’re not sure how the pricing for the service works, or how a business becomes a “qualified” Home Service. As they launch this new service in other areas, we’ll post more information.

We hope this helps!

The post How Do the Google Home Services Ads Work? appeared first on Third Marble Marketing .

Google Educational Simulcast for Home Services Companies

Wed, 04 Nov 2015 20:00:00 GMT

Own a Home Services Business? Join us for a free Google Simulcast.

Third Marble hosted a Google Partner event on Sept 30, 2015.

Want to know what Google knows about the Home Services Industry? Join us for a free Google Simulcast event. Two speakers from Google will be discussing the latest online trends for companies that service homeowners – for example – contractors, maid services, real estate agents, carpet cleaning, etc…

Learn what your competitors are doing to leverage the search giant and how you can apply these simple principles to your business.

Our previous simulcast events have been extremely educational and the attendees came away with some good information on the future of the digital age.

If you’re not aware, Google is planning (and has already launched) a home services product similar to Angies List and Amazon that connects home owners directly with service providers – in other words, home services companies can get jobs directly from page one of Google . We’re not 100% certain Google will be discussing this feature in the simulcast, but chances are they will mention it. Hopefully, they will explain how the Home Services Ads work . (Read more about Google’s Home Services Results .)

Who – Any business owner, but especially businesses that service homeowners. Feel free to invite your website designer or marketing consultant too.

When – November 19, 2015 at 2:30.

Where – Kingsway Church in Midlothian, VA. 14111 Sovereign Grace Dr, Midlothian, VA 23114

Agenda:

REGISTRATION – FREE!!!!

Speakers:

Ben Tyson

Ben is the Head of Sales Enablement for SEM and Directories Partners at Google. He is responsible for educating North America Partners on Google products, sales, and strategy. Ben will discuss the importance of shifting to digital and how to leverage new markets’ products and technologies to further drive the success of home service companies through digital advertising.

Tyler Johansson

Tyler is on his second stint with Google and is currently a Strategic Partner Manager in the Channel Sales organization where he oversees strategic relationships with premier advertising partners specializing in serving the small and medium business market. Tyler will discuss consumer search trends in the Home Service space.

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Google Partner Connect Richmond, VA

Wed, 30 Sep 2015 23:25:00 GMT

Thank you to everyone who joined us for our Google Partner Simulcast Event today!

Today, Sept 30, 2015, Third Marble hosted a Google Partner Connect event which included a simulcast from some of the AdWords folks from Google. Google discussed the trends in mobile marketing.

Third Marble hosted a Google Partner event on Sept 30, 2015.

In general, people are using their phones more frequently, but each interaction is taking less time to complete. They also said that conversion rates from mobile websites has increased significantly. The conclusion was that businesses are getting better at designing mobile websites and people are finding what they’re looking for faster.

For small business, Google recommends designing your website for the mobile phone, then worry about what it looks like on a desktop. Just this year, mobile searches have exceeded desktop and tablet searches combined. That trend will continue, so if you are looking to re-design your website to be useful for the next few years, design for mobile.

There was also some related discussion about how 41% of adults use “voice search”. This has changed the keywords that people use to search. Before voice search, search terms were short due to the tiny keyboards on smart phones. With voice search, search terms has become very long and often in the form of a question. This impacts keyword selection for PPC and any SEO you’re doing.

There was a general review of AdWords and Google+ My Business in which Google outlined how some of the more advanced AdWords features can be used to increase click through rates and conversions. They also made it very clear that small businesses should really pay attention to their Google+ My Business Page and get reviews .

Thanks again to everyone that attended, and a special thanks to New Horizons Computer Learning Center in Richmond, VA for allowing us to use their facility!

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How Do I Get Rid of a Bad Review on Google Plus?

Fri, 12 Jun 2015 11:45:00 GMT

Getting Rid of Bad Reviews on Google Plus My Business Pages

Sorry – you can’t. But the person that wrote the review can. If you can contact the person that wrote the bad review, you can always ask them to remove it. We have a client that had a review removed by taking a customer to court in a civil lawsuit. You try try this tactic, but it may backfire too. If the review was slanderous – in other words it did not state fact – then this tactic may work. I think most people would want to avoid a lawsuit and would remove the review instead of dealing with lawyers. (NOTE: We are not lawyers, so consult your own lawyer before doing anything like this.)

If the online review was factual and accurate, and the customer feels strongly that your company deserved the bad review, then the only real thing you can do to minimize the impact on your business would be to get 10 more 5 star reviews. There is no way for you to remove an online review – only the person that wrote it can remove it.

Want more 5-star online reviews?

The thing with reviews that you need to understand is that no one wants to take the time to write a good review. It’s human nature. But people will bend over backwards to leave 20 bad reviews if they ever feel disrespected.

So, you really need to be proactive in getting your customers (especially the ones the praise your work) to leave positive reviews to offset the occasional negative review. This can be difficult.

But simply asking everyone to leave a review can open your business to more negative or mediocre reviews. So here’s a simple method for getting more and better online reviews .

Method for Getting Online Reviews:

Get your clients to agree to leave a review before they buy from you. Change your sales process to include a simple sentence or two, like “If we do a really good job for you, would you be willing to leave a review on Google Plus for our business? These online reviews really help get the word out about our service.” This sets the expectation and they now understand that part of their responsibility in the transaction is to leave a review.

After the job or sale is completed, ask the customer to “Tell us about your experience.” If they don’t have many positive things to say, then simply wish them well. If they have positive things to say, then gently remind them that they agreed to leave an online review and that you will email them a link to leave the review.

When you send the email to the customer, make sure the email has four elements to it:

It’s hard for someone to write something, which is why you include the section about how they answered the “experience” question. The customer can simply copy and paste that section (which you have paraphrased they way you want it to read) into the review website.

If they don’t leave a review anywhere, then you may want to forward them the email again about a week later to remind them.

We hope this helps!

The post How Do I Get Rid of a Bad Review on Google Plus? appeared first on Third Marble Marketing .

3 Tips for Improving Your Lead Conversion Rate

Wed, 03 Jun 2015 19:59:00 GMT

(This is a guest blog post by Kevin Jordan, a trusted partner and referral source for Third Marble.)

3 Tips for Improving Your Lead Conversion Rate

Before you spend one more penny on lead generation tactics of any kind, read through these three tried-and-true methods for increasing your lead conversion rate.

Answer the phone

Sometimes I can’t believe I have to mention this, but if nobody answers the phone when someone calls your business, your chances of converting a lead drop dramatically. Unless there is something very unique indeed about your service or product (a rarity in the small business world), the person is just as likely to move on to the next business that turned up in the Google search results for whatever search they just did. Even after years of working as a marketing consultant, I am still shocked to encounter the following on a routine basis when I call a small business:

Obviously, none of the above experiences screams “great customer service.” The funny (or sad) thing is, frequently I will have one of the experiences I just described with a business that I know for a fact is spending money on advertising. I guess they were just hoping that people who saw or heard their ad would call during the one hour of the day when they were available to answer the phone. If it’s been a while since you called your own business, I highly recommend that you stop what you’re doing right now and do that to make sure that you’re not making one of the mistakes I describe above.

Give people a way to try you out

One very common mistake I see business owners making is using advertising to promote high-priced products or services. I guess their mindset is that advertising is expensive, so they want to make sure that when they get a lead conversion from an ad it results in a big sale. The problem with this approach is that someone who has never heard of your business before they see your ad doesn’t yet like or trust you, and probably won’t drop a large sum of money on your products or services without getting to know you first.

Instead of trying to make a sale in your ads, use advertising and other lead generation tactics to promote a way that people can try you out for free or at a greatly reduced cost. This could be a free workshop, a coupon for a free service for new customers (like an oil change or a car wash for an auto shop), a free buyer’s guide or ebook, or an invitation to a free event at your store or place of business.

Be sure to have a plan in place for converting people who take advantage of your free offer into long-term customers. This is called a “sales funnel”, and it will take you a small to medium amount of time and energy to set up. The payoff will be a dramatic increase in your lead conversion rate and much lower customer acquisition costs.

Use content

One sure-fire way to convert more leads into customers is to educate them about why they should do business with you vs your competition. Hint: you’ll need more than a pretty logo, a cute tagline, and some variation of the message “we have the best quality, prices, and service”. There’s a lot of different types of content you can create, but I recommend at least the following:

Once you’ve created this basic content, make sure to put it on your website, use it in your marketing materials, and reference it in your ads. It will go a long way towards making people feel more comfortable doing business with you.

Unfortunately, as with lead generation, there is no magic bullet to increasing your lead conversion rate. It’s a matter of doing lots of little things that, collectively, yield big results. The important thing is that you spend time working on this area of your marketing before spending more money on lead generation in order to get a better return on your investment.

About Kevin Jordan

Kevin Jordan is a small business marketing consultant based in central Virginia, and the author of the soon-to-be-released book The Small Business Owner’s Guide to Local Lead Generation . He’s also the host of the Small Business Marketing Minute Podcast, which is available on iTunes and Stitcher radio. He is a Certified Duct Tape Marketing Consultant and specializes in helping local business owners create a rock-solid marketing strategy for their business.

The post 3 Tips for Improving Your Lead Conversion Rate appeared first on Third Marble Marketing .

National Small Business Week – Richmond, VA

Mon, 04 May 2015 20:54:00 GMT

National Small Business Week in Richmond, VA

Help Us get the word our about Small Business Week in Richmond, VA.

Third Marble is Google’s Partner in the Richmond, VA area for Small Business Week. Read below on how you can help you fellow small businesses grow.

National Small Business Week is a chance to celebrate the businesses that give our communities character and clout. This May 4-8, instead of three cheers, we’re giving them five, with five simple ways to get businesses online and growing.

But what’s a celebration without gifts? Businesses that participate will be eligible to win a free custom domain name, a 360° virtual tour photoshoot of their business (a $255 value), 25% off Google Apps for Work, and more.

Below you’ll find social posts to help spread the word about these resources. Feel free to share any and all of these. Or reshare our posts: Google+ , Facebook , Twitter . We’ll add more as the week continues.

Thank you for supporting the small businesses that strengthen our communities – during National Small Business Week and every day!

*Note, this offer is only available to businesses in the U.S. and Puerto Rico.

SPREAD THE WORD ABOUT SMALL BUSINESS WEEK IN RICHMOND,VA:

Google+, Facebook, LinkedIn

General 1

It’s Small Business Week! Forget three cheers–we’re celebrating with five by sharing five simple ways you can help your business get online and grow. Take a look now: google.com/smallbusinessweek #SBW15 #5days5ways

General 2

Take a minute this Small Business Week to make the web work for you. These ideas and quick-fixes will have your business shining online. Check them out now and grab some special Small Business Week perks: google.com/smallbusinessweek #SBW15 #5days5ways

Way 1, Show up on Google

How does your business show up on Google Search and Maps? Take ten minutes to make sure people are finding the right info when they look for you online. The best part? It’s free. google.com/smallbusinessweek #SBW15 #5days5ways

Way 2, Learn from pros and peers

Over 320,000 members (and growing) are mixing and mingling in a Google community exclusively for small business owners. Join now to swap ideas and info with your colleagues across the country, to get access to events with top industry experts, and more: google.com/smallbusinessweek #SBW15 #5days5ways

Way 3, Work better, together

Put your business on the move. Google has cool tools to help your team get business done, from anywhere. Browse the latest now: google.com/smallbusinessweek #SBW15 #5days5ways

Way 4, Claim your domain

These days, people are looking for your web address before they find you at your physical address. Set up a great domain name to help those people connect with you. Visit google.com/smallbusinessweek for a chance at a free one as part of #5days5ways #SBW15

Way 5, Get advice from an advertising pro

An online ad can reach people right when they’re searching for what you offer (and are ready to become customers). Not sure how to get started? Grab a free consultation with a digital expert, a special treat for Small Business Week. google.com/smallbusinessweek #SBW15 #5days5ways

Twitter

General 1

Want to show your business some love this #SBW15? Check out #5days5ways to go big online: gybo.com/SBW

General 2

Celebrate #SBW15 with free tools to help make this your best year yet: gybo.com/SBW #5days5ways

Way 1, Show up Google

Can people find your business when they search online? Take a minute this #SBW15 to make sure: gybo.com/SBW #5days5ways

Way 2, Learn from pros and peers

Make business buddies! Mix and mingle with small biz owners across the US in a Google+ community: gybo.com/SBW #SBW15 #5days5ways

Way 3, Work better, together

Break free from your desktop. Google has cool & easy tools to help your small business go mobile: gybo.com/SBW #SBW15 #5days5ways

Way 4, Claim your domain

Hang your ‘Open’ sign online. Give your business a digital address with a free domain name: gybo.com/SBW #SBW15 #5days5ways

Way 5, Get advice from an advertising pro

Get the word out about your biz with online ads. RSVP for your free consultation with a digital ad expert:

gybo.com/SBW #SBW15 #5days5ways

The post National Small Business Week – Richmond, VA appeared first on Third Marble Marketing .

Let’s Put Chesterfield on the Map

Thu, 26 Mar 2015 17:21:00 GMT

The post Let’s Put Chesterfield on the Map appeared first on Third Marble Marketing .

Google Telemarketing Calls

Thu, 05 Feb 2015 17:15:00 GMT

Does your business get multiple telemarketing calls a day from “Google”?

We’ve had several clients contact us in a panic about these telemarketing calls from “Google”. I like to call them the “Google Fairies”. They magically found out that your “Google Listing” has been corrupted, or they claim that they are “Google Data Aggregators” and your business will suffer if you don’t do what they say. Then they make your money disappear.

Do you get these calls daily?

Here’s what you need to know about these calls:

1 – You cannot lose your Google Listings or you Google Business Page unless you have given someone the PIN number from the postcard that Google mails you to verify you are the business owner. (BTW – Do Not Ever give anyone your PIN number for your Google My Business page.)

2 – If you’re not sure if it’s Google calling, ask them for their email address. All Google employees have an email address that ends in “@google.com”. Not “gmail.com”.

3 – “We’re a Google Data Aggregator” means that they enter data into Google. So do you – every time you search for something. This is a total twist on words.

4 – “Google provided us with your information” – this means that they Googled you. The corporate office at Google did not ask this company to call you. Trust me.

5 – If they give you their company name, Google the name of the company plus the word “reviews”. Try to find their BBB page or their Yelp page. Every time I’ve done this, I see an “F” rating or a 1 out of 5 star rating.

6 – If you don’t get their company name, Google the phone number from your caller ID. Chances are you’ll see a list of websites that report scam phone numbers.

7 – If they tell you you’re not on Page One of Google, ask them for a list of the specific keyword phrases for which you do not appear. I bet they can’t tell you.

If you’re really sick of the Google Fairies, try this:

Next time you get a call from a Google Fairy, get a live person on the line and talk to them for as long as you can without giving any information or agreeing to anything. Have fun with it. Then after 2-3 minutes, ask for a supervisor and waste a little of their time. Then ask him / her to remove you from their calling list or next time they call, you’ll waste 20 minutes of their time. Call center supervisors are often graded on their call stats, like “close rate” and “minutes of talk time per sale”. They will be motivated to remove you from their call list.

Check this out – Telemarketing Call Blockers that Work!

We found these little gems on Amazon. Check them out…

If this article helped you today, please take 2 seconds and +1 this page:

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How to Setup a Google Plus My Business Account

Sat, 27 Dec 2014 00:22:00 GMT

Before you can create a Google+ My Business Account, you need to have a personal profile. If you have one you’d like to link to your account, go ahead and sign in to that account first. If you don’t already have a personal account, create one first.

Once you’ve done that, you’re ready to proceed.

Step 1 Create a Page

To start, visit Create a Page on Google+. Once there, you'll have to choose between five main categories for your business.

Local Business or Place Product or Brand Company, Institution, or Organization Arts, Entertainment, or Sports Other

After selecting the category that best fits your business, follow the instructions on the subsequent pages, and enter your business's information. If your business is already located on the web, Google may present you with the option to auto-fill it. However, double check to make sure it's accurate before submitting.

Step 2 Create Your Public Profile

Here, you’ll be asked to fill in information about your business, including writing a short description and adding a photo. You can add your company logo or a personal photo of the person in charge if you want. Just remember, this image will be the face of the company.

Here, you’ll also have options for adding videos, creating blog posts, and adding other elements to give your company a more unique look. Play around with the features until youre satisfied.

Step 3 Socializing

After completing the profile, youll want to start following other people and/or businesses. You can connect with fellow employees or people with whom you work. Use this to engage with your customers (or fans, or followers) and release information.

Make sure to link your business account to your website and other social media sites, such as Facebook and Twitter.

The post How to Setup a Google Plus My Business Account appeared first on Third Marble Marketing .

BizSource – Small Business Resource Open House

Mon, 03 Nov 2014 14:56:00 GMT

Small Business Owners in Richmond, VA:

Come out to BizSource’s Open House on November 6, 2014 from 9:00 am to 1:00 pm .

Third Marble will be there teaching Small Business Owners simple SEO tricks and tips. Join us and learn more about Google!

Location:

No registration is required and the event is Free !

The post BizSource – Small Business Resource Open House appeared first on Third Marble Marketing .

SEO – How to Fix Citations

Wed, 29 Oct 2014 09:52:00 GMT

Fix Your “Citations”

Here’s an easy do-it-yourself SEO tip for small, local businesses: Fix Your “Citations”.

What are your citations?

They are simply your business’s name, address and phone number (or NAP) on respected websites – typically business listing websites like Yelp or your local chamber of commerce.

Google is at war with spam websites that are trying to infiltrate page one search engine results. For local businesses, the one thing that Google uses to determine if your website belongs to a legitimate business is to look for citations . If your business’s NAP appears on quality websites – like association websites, business listing websites and other respected websites, then Google feels comfortable showing your website on Page One.

Google’s objective is to present relevant results to Google users, so they need to safeguard against the cheaters and spammers. Citations are one way Google verifies your website and business are legit.

All other things being equal, if Business A and Business B are in the same industry, but Business A has their NAP on 100 respected websites, and Business B only has their NAP on their own website, what website do you think will be on Page One?

How do you get citations yourself?

Here’s one way:

This process takes time, so just try to do a few each week. Start with the important websites first – Google+, Facebook, Twitter, Yelp, YP.com, SuperPages.com, Angie’s List, etc….

(Another way would be to hire someone that does Local Search Engine Optimization for Small Businesses .)

We hope this helps!

The post SEO – How to Fix Citations appeared first on Third Marble Marketing .

SEO for Small Business and Lions

Sat, 19 Jul 2014 22:18:00 GMT

A Great “SEO for Small Business” Story

SEO for small businesses is never about beating Google. The typical small business owner, for some reason, thinks he needs to spend thousands of dollars on SEO to get to page one of Google. That’s not the case at all. This story is a great example of how to win the “ SEO for small business ” game:

The first man slowly removes his heavy hiking boots and pulls a pair of running shoes from his back pack and begins to put them on.

The second man says “There’s no way you’ll ever out run a lion!”

The first man smiles and says “I know. I just need to out run you.”

You don’t need to beat Google. You just need to beat your competitors.

Many of your competitors aren’t doing much to optimize their website. A few may have hired specialists and spend thousands of dollars each month. You need to realize, there are 20 open spots on page one of Google . A business can only occupy 3 or 4 of those spots at most. If two of your competitors are spending $2000 a month, and the next 10 aren’t spending anything, then you can probably get to the number 3 through 6 spots with just a few hundred dollars a month in SEO work.

Let the lions eat the other 10 competitors. Simply put on your running shoes.

The point is this – it doesn’t take a ton of money to get business from Google with SEO. If you need a local SEO service , visit the SEO section of our website.

I hope this helps.

The post SEO for Small Business and Lions appeared first on Third Marble Marketing .

Panda 4.0 and the Small Business Website

Sun, 13 Jul 2014 15:51:00 GMT

What Small Business Owners Need to Know about Panda 4.0.

If your small business stopped getting the phone calls it used to right around May 21, 2014, you may have been a victim of Panda 4.0. We’ve been getting a lot of calls from people asking about Panda 4.0, so we wanted to make sure everyone is up to speed on how to handle it.

Panda 4.0 is the latest update to Google’s search algorithm which went live the weekend of May 21, 2014. While no one knows for sure exactly what the update changes were (except Google of course), the SEO industry has some pretty good insights. Since even online giants like Ebay have taken a 80% hit in the number of pages ranked on page one, it’s pretty clear that this update was another game changer.

Here’s what small business owners need to know and do about Panda 4.0:

First, you need to know that Panda 4.0 was implemented to make sure Google provides Google users the absolute best search results it can – as are the other 400 to 500 updates Google makes to their algorithm each year. If you are not trying to “game the SEO system”, then these updates will help push your competitors down and lift your website up – IF you are following the Google SEO Guidelines.

Remember, Google is trying to provide Google Users with the best customer experience they can. They’re not trying to make it difficult for you. They’re trying to make it difficult for your competitors that are trying to cheat.

For Local Businesses, here’s the game plan. Click on the link beneath each bullet point to read the full blog post for more details:

1. Get more reviews.

Getting more reviews .

2. Get your “citations” in order.

Fix your citations .

3. Keep writing quality content for your industry.

Writing good quality content .

4. Consider professional help.

Why you should get professional help .

We have some free SEO resources available on our website for small business owners. If you think you need help getting more business, please read through the material we have available and educate yourself.

PLEASE NOTE: Panda 4.0 has absolutely no impact on the Pay-per-Click Ads that you may be running with Google AdWords.

The post Panda 4.0 and the Small Business Website appeared first on Third Marble Marketing .

Panda 4.0 – Get more reviews.

Sun, 13 Jul 2014 15:36:00 GMT

Panda 4.0 and the Small Business Website – Get More Reviews

(This is the 2nd in a series of 5 articles about Panda 4.0) ( previous ) ( next )

If you ever Google a local business, you’ll see a map appear in the upper right of the search results page that has a bunch of red pins in it. This is where Google displays their Google+ My Business Listings . The section in the organic section that also displays the business information is sometimes called the “7-Pack” (because the most they usually list is 7 businesses.

You’ll also typically notice that the businesses near the top of the 7-Pack will frequently have a rating scale displayed – usually the businesses at the top have a 4 to 5 star rating and at least 5 Google reviews.

This is the 7-pack. If you’re not getting good reviews, it may be difficult for you to find yourself listed here.

Google is trying to validate your business using information it can gather from the web. Historically, a business with lots of good reviews – regardless of how much SEO you do – has a better chance of getting to page one than a heavily SEO’ed website with poor reviews. It appears that the new Panda 4.0 update has amplified this rule.

What you need to do – start asking your customers to leave reviews on your Google My Business page (formerly Google Places).

There is a best practices process for this. First ask your customer the following question – “How likely are you to refer us to a friend or family member?” Then ask for a response on a scale of 1 to 10.

If they answer 9 or 10, then email them instructions and a link to your Google+ page and ask them to leave a review.

If they answer 8 or below, you may want to ask them why and resolve any issues they had, but do not ask them to leave a review.

DO NOT:

The reviews need to come naturally over time and from real customers. It will take time, so make this part of your process now and you’ll be getting more phone calls soon.

PLEASE NOTE: Panda 4.0 has absolutely no impact on the Pay-per-Click Ads that you may be running with Google AdWords .

The post Panda 4.0 – Get more reviews. appeared first on Third Marble Marketing .

Panda 4.0 – Fix your Citations

Sun, 13 Jul 2014 15:33:00 GMT

Panda 4.0 and the Small Business Website – Fix Your Citations

(This is the 3rd in a series of 5 articles about Panda 4.0) ( previous ) ( next )

Citations are simply your businesses information on other websites – like your business’s name, address and phone number (or “NAP”). If your business’s information is properly tagged on your website with the proper local business information schema , then Google can identify other websites with that same information.

How does this help?

Think like Google – if a website has an address and phone number, but that address and phone number doesn’t appear on any other websites, would you think it’s a legitimate business? Would that be a business you would want to hire or buy from? If that website didn’t have an address or phone number, what would you think?

Another example – what if you found a business that has a good website, but has 4 different websites and each one has a different business name, address and / or phone number (NAP)? What if the phone numbers are different on their Google+ page, their YP.com page and their superpages.com page? Something would look fishy, right?

Not only would you be completely confused, but what if you were Google? Why would Google want to display 8 different phone numbers on page one of their search results? You may lose faith in Google’s ability to provide accurate, relevant results.

By contrast, what would you think about a business that has a proper address and local phone number and that business’s information can easily be found on most online directories, has their business information on websites like the BBB, the local chamber and several industry or trade related websites? What if Google displayed 4 or 5 of these web pages on Page One that all had the same NAP information? You would have found what you’re looking for right?

Google is trying to display results of businesses that are active in the community. Why? Because that’s what people want to see.

The plan is simple –

Find your business on every web page you can and make sure your business information is identical everywhere – same exact business name, same exact address and same exact phone number. If your official postal address is “123 Main St. Suite 45”, make sure it appears that way everywhere. If a website has the address listed as “123 E Main St. Unit 45”, then change the word “Unit” to “Suite” and delete the “E” before Main St.

If you belong to any organization like the BBB or a trade organization – make sure your NAP information is correct on their websites as well.

If you find a place that will list your business, but you do not have a listing yet, fill-out the information. These include websites like manta.com , superpages.com and local chambers . There are hundreds of these websites, so pick only the website that look credible. If you Google your competitors, sometimes you’ll see these websites appear on page one.

Is this a lot of work? YES. Your competitors are doing it, so you either need to hire an SEO professional to do the work, or learn to do it yourself (or hope people start using the phone book again).

PLEASE NOTE: Panda 4.0 has absolutely no impact on the Pay-per-Click Ads that you may be running with Google AdWords .

The post Panda 4.0 – Fix your Citations appeared first on Third Marble Marketing .

Panda 4.0 – Quality Content

Sun, 13 Jul 2014 15:25:00 GMT

Panda 4.0 and the Small Business Website – Quality Content

(This is the 4th in a series of 5 articles about Panda 4.0) ( previous ) ( next )

The saying within the SEO professionals circle is “Content is King”. Google wants to see “ well written, unique content ” and if your content has been copied from another website – even just a few paragraphs, then you may be affected.

There are a few things that you should try to do as a small business owner:

Blog Posts

First – no one will ever read your blog posts. If you’re reading this now, we probably sent you a link to this page because you asked us about Panda 4.0 or you had a question about content. Google is the reason you write blog posts. It’s the reason I’m writing this now.

Having said that, write blog posts for one reason – Blogs are a great way to add pages to your website. Well-written blog posts, that are optimized for the search engines can, over time, build your website to hundreds of pages. Google can’t ignore a website with 100 pages of well-written content.

Plus, as these pages get indexed on the search engines, it helps drive more traffic to your website. Websites with more visitors get indexed higher (all other things being equal).

Google+ Profile

There are lots of resources out there on how to complete your Google+ profile. Here are the highlights:

Why do all of this?

As a certified author of your content, Google puts your Google+ Profile next to your web page description. This links to your profile and gives this web page more credibility in both Google’s mind, and that of the Google User (ie. the searcher). When the page has been authored by a real person, with a real face (hence the head shot as a Google+ profile picture), you can be reasonably sure that the page was not written by some SEO scam company.

The Author “By Line” is not new to Google or the Panda 4.0 update, but you need to know that the by lines in the search results come from and link to your Google+ profile.

Content

Whether you write your own blog posts or hire a copywriter to do it for you, please make sure all the content is unique.

PLEASE NOTE: Panda 4.0 has absolutely no impact on the Pay-per-Click Ads that you may be running with Google AdWords .

The post Panda 4.0 – Quality Content appeared first on Third Marble Marketing .

Panda 4.0 – Get professional SEO help

Sun, 13 Jul 2014 15:21:00 GMT

Panda 4.0 and the Small Business Website – Get Professional SEO Help

(This is the 5th in a series of 5 articles about Panda 4.0) ( previous )

Panda 4.0 may have affected the number of listings your small business is getting on Page One of Google. If so, you may need help. There are a lot of moving parts to try to understand.

If you were using an SEO company in the past and they have done more damage than good, you may never recover. Here are your options:

Before hiring an SEO Professional, make sure you know enough about SEO to at least interview potential companies.

If your website has not been tainted by the old-school, black-hat SEO tactics, then you can move forward with the good quality SEO methods that Google recommends.

We highly recommend learning more about SEO before hiring an SEO company. We know that most small businesses get daily cold calls and emails from random SEO companies try to get you to sign a contract with them. Most of them a bogus. But without a basic understanding of SEO , you may hire a company that does more damage than good.

Here are a list of things to ask your SEO professional:

TIP: Many SEO scam companies will not give you the name of their company because their cold call script is written in such a way that they want you to believe they are Google employees. Google employees have an email address that ends in “google.com” and NOT “gmail.com”. For example “chris.fawcett@google.com” not “chris.fawcett@gmail.com” (not my real email). Ask them for their email address. Any reputable company, including Google, will give you an email address readily. If the give you anything except an “@google.com” email – RUN!!!!

Why are tracking phone numbers and tracking URLs bad?

Two main reasons – 1. You will not own your business phone number and URL on the web (they will own your phone number and URL – what happens when you break contract?) 2. Your citations won’t match. This creates confusion for Google and your prospective customers.

Also, when they create other URLs, you are paying them to optimize THEIR web properties – not yours. You will not own the work that you are paying for. Again, as soon as you break contract with them, you’re starting over – you will be their hostage.

They will have essentially re-created your online profiles with their information. They now own your phone number and URL. When you break contract, it will cost you thousands of dollars in lost revenue and you’ll have to pay someone to clean-up the mess. It may take a year or so to recover.

Why would an SEO professional need all those log-ins?

Simple – a professional, quality SEO company cannot optimize a local business’s website without them.

A quality SEO company will need your Google+ log-in to link all your blog posts and pages to your Google+ profile. They’ll need your Analytics to monitor their performance and provide you with reports. They’ll need the log-in to your website so they can properly optimize your web pages for proper tags and schema. They may even ask for log-in and passwords to your BBB, yp.com, superpages, yelp and other websites so they can clean-up and add citations.

Can Third Marble help me?

We would love to help everyone, but there are so many different types of websites and it would take an army of people to know how to optimize every type of website.

We have recently created an SEO package designed to help a large percentage of business owners: local businesses with WordPress websites.

IF you are a small business that wants to advertise in a 10 to 30 mile radius AND you have a WordPress website, Third Marble may be able to help. Our SEO for Small Business WordPress Websites is $799 per month and covers all the aspects of SEO covered in this blog post.

Normally, the level of SEO service we offer would cost $2000 to $4000 per month, but most small businesses can’t afford that much. We were able to create and utilize a series of WordPress plug-ins that make SEO for local advertisers much easier and keeps the number of hours of SEO work needed to a minimum. Please see the SEO section of our website for more information.

PLEASE NOTE: Panda 4.0 has absolutely no impact on the Pay-per-Click Ads that you may be running with Google AdWords.

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We’re Google Partner’s #1 Most Engaged!

Fri, 04 Apr 2014 22:25:00 GMT

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SEO Videos from our last SEO session.

Wed, 02 Apr 2014 20:41:00 GMT

I just posted several videos to our new YouTube Channel from our last SEO Education Session. The session covered the basic elements of SEO and a little bit about how to think about the keywords you need to use. Here’s one of the videos that talks about title tags and meta descriptions:

Our SEO Videos can be seen here. If you like any of the videos, please help us out and +1 the videos, or our website.

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SEO Secrets – Top 5 Tricks for Richmond Websites

Tue, 04 Mar 2014 13:55:00 GMT

The post SEO Secrets – Top 5 Tricks for Richmond Websites appeared first on Third Marble Marketing .

ReachLocal Pricing and Reviews

Sun, 16 Feb 2014 14:51:00 GMT

Many Third Marble customers have used ReachLocal in the past. Some of our customers have given us their ReachLocal pricing and they always show us a flat rate, monthly pricing. Some as low as $500 per month, some much more. Regardless of the monthly fees, when we ask our customers how much of that goes to pay for the clicks – ie. actual advertising – they don’t know. The reports they get don’t break out Reach Local’s fees from the cost of the ads.

In Reviewing ReachLocal for customers, we learned they were publicly traded.

So we did a little investigative research on their reviews and ReachLocal’s pricing and costs. Since they’re a publicly traded company (NASDAQ: RLOC ), we can see the breakdown of ReachLocal’s sales to their expenses. In 2013, here’s the story:

Sales – $514 mm.

Cost of Sales – $241 mm.

Selling, general and admin expenses – $251 mm.

Total Net Loss – $2 mm

So if we’re reading this correctly, for every $100 a ReachLocal customer spends for their service, only $47 goes towards the ads. We’re assuming ‘Cost of Sales’ is the advertising cost paid to Google and other online services, so $241 / $514 = 47%.

That means $53 goes to pay for their sales people and other administration expenses ($251/$514). That’s a lot of overhead.

Moral of the story – know how much of what you pay actually goes to pay for the ads. If you’re spending $1000 per month with ReachLocal, only $470 of it is going to pay for ads. Are they really doing $530 worth of work for you each month? (That’s $6360 a year.) Food for thought.

If you would like internet marketing with transparent pricing at affordable rates, click on these links to check out Third Marble’s services:

AdWords for Franchsiees

Franchisor SEO and AdWords Packages

AdWords Management Services

Local SEO Services

We hope this helps!

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Small Business Owners looking to Online Marketing to boost sales in 2014.

Fri, 14 Feb 2014 21:15:00 GMT

Information for small business owners on boosting sales.

According to Capital One’s Spark Business Barometer, small businesses are will be looking to do more online marketing in 2014:

Th report goes on to say:

We recommend having a solid online marketing plan in place. Just trying things doesn’t always work if they’re implemented randomly. In the online space, the search engines rule. So you need to know what your customers are looking for – what are they entering into the search engines? Do you know?

The post Small Business Owners looking to Online Marketing to boost sales in 2014. appeared first on Third Marble Marketing .

Facebook, Twitter and Search Engine Optimization

Thu, 23 Jan 2014 15:09:00 GMT

Social media does not effect Search Engine Optimization Like They Used To…

Matt Cutts, Google’s Spam Guru, explained yesterday that Google can no longer rely on social medias for accurate information, so they don’t give them those websites the special influence they once did. This is another blow to Facebook and Twitter from an SEO perspective. Since these websites tried to block Google from indexing and crawling their websites, Google can no longer rely on them for a consistent source of Google Juice.

What does this imply? For me, it’s just another nail in the coffin for these two powerhouses. Once the SEO world and businesses stop trying to use Facebook and Twitter for SEO, the activity will decline. The ads on TV and Radio – and other websites – will begin to diminish. If you’re investing heavily (either your time or your resources) in Facebook and Twitter hoping for better search engine rankings, you may want to re-focus on your Google+ page instead.

Here’s the video posted on YouTube:

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How to SEO Your Website – Lunch Session

Sat, 21 Dec 2013 13:30:00 GMT

How to SEO your Website – Lunch Session for Small Business Owners and Web Designers

Learn the Basics of Search Engine Optimization from Third Marble’s own Chris Fawcett. Chris has been in the internet marketing game since 1991 – that’s before Amazon sold their first book! He will be explaining the simple things that may be missing from your website, that might actually prevent Google from displaying your website on Page One – and how you can fix them.

In this session, you will learn the top 5 SEO tactics that need to happen to a website to even have a chance for showing up on Google – how to tell if they’re there and how to add or fix them. You’ll also learn the basics of “ keyword strategies ” and the three ways you can get your website on Page One .

PLUS – all attendees will get a FREE SEO Audit Report for their website emailed to them after the session (a $49 value – and includes a 15 minute phone call review of the report with you),

PLUS – all attendees will get a copy of the 30 page “ Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide ” emailed to them,

If you’re not getting enough business from Google, then we encourage you to invite your web designer to attend too!

Place – Bull and Bear Club

Date – February 12, 2014

Special Thanks to PRO for sponsoring this event!

Time – Networking begins at 11:00. Session from 11:30 to 1:00.

Cost – $20 (to be collected at the door)

Directions : Google Maps

901 E Cary St

Richmond, VA 23219

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Search Engine Optimization – Keyword Not Provided

Sun, 24 Nov 2013 21:05:00 GMT

For all our Google AdWords Management customers, please be aware that Google recently changed the way it handles keyword phrases. Apparently, the NSA was doing a little too much poking around in Google’s data, so Google decided to protect the privacy of their users. To do this, they encrypted the searches that you make on google.com . This means that web analytics packages (like Google Analytics ), that used to be able to tell you what someone searched for (ie. the keywords) before they came to your website. This in no way affects our ability to provide you with your AdWords data, or interfere with the way we manage your account.

For the SEO experts however, this missing data was the heart and blood of what they do. Now they will no longer be able to see that data. Instead, most of the keyword data provided to them will appear as “Not Provided”.

According to Google:

“We added SSL encryption for our signed-in search users in 2011, as well as searches from the Chrome omnibox earlier this year. We’re now working to bring this extra protection to more users who are not signed in.”

About a month ago, they rolled this out to all Google webpages – including those where the user is logged-in.

Bottom-line – If you are currently paying someone for SEO services , you may want to ask them how they’re going to manage your data going forward.

I hope this helps.

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EVENT: SEO seminar in Richmond, VA.

Mon, 21 Oct 2013 20:16:00 GMT

Dispelling the myths of SEO – What Google wants you to know!

Search Engine Optimization for Small Business Owners – a seminar by Third Marble’s own Chris Fawcett.

When – Wednesday, November 6, 2013 11:30 – 1:00.

Where – Richmond Country Club

Cost – $15 for lunch, the session is free.

Need more business from Google? Learn how Google reads your website and how you can use that knowledge to get more business from the search engine giant. If you own a small business, then this event is a must attend. You’ll learn about how Google does NOT make SEO a secret. You to can understand enough about SEO to make the changes needed to get you more exposure on Page One. If nothing else, you’ll be able to understand more about what the SEO companies are selling.

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Guessing at Keywords

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 15:45:00 GMT

Most SEO efforts start with a list of keywords that you think will get you to the top of Page One of Google. But how do you know they’re the right keywords? Think about it – what if you spend days or weeks optimizing your site, then wait months for your site to be re-indexed […]

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Third Marble Marketing – Richmond Top Companies

Sat, 30 Mar 2013 11:19:00 GMT

THANK YOU TO ALL OUR THIRD MARBLE CUSTOMERS! Third Marble Marketing made the list of Richmond’s Top Privately Held Companies. We’ve been growing since we started almost 4 years ago and continue to grow each month – almost entirely on referrals. It’s amazing what you can do when your service helps other businesses grow. An […]

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SEO Company Tricks – The Missing Location

Fri, 29 Mar 2013 20:28:00 GMT

A customer was called by an SEO company with what he thought was a very compelling offer to get his web site up on Page One of Google with their $500 to $1000 a month SEO service. They said that his website was not on Page One. Meanwhile, most of his business comes from being on Page One of Google. Suspecting foul play, he told the sales rep to call me, telling the sales rep that I was in charge of his internet marketing.

The sales rep called me. I talked to the person briefly.

He said “You’re not on page one of Google and you need to be.”

So I simply replied “What keywords am I not on Page One of Google for?”

He said “I don’t know, I’ll have to send you a report.”

So I said, “Well you must have a report in front of you, otherwise how would you know I’m not on Page One?”

“Our reports tell us.”

“Well send me the report then.”

He agreed to send me the report. A few days later, I get this generic report that, not surprisingly, did not list any keywords, but had 20 pages of general stats and re-generated cliches from the Google website. I email back, “This doesn’t tell me what keywords you think I’m not on page one.”

A few days later, I get a data dump from a Google Keyword Tool with 30 keywords on it showing that my customer’s website is not showing up on Page One of Google for 27 of the 30 terms. It looked bad.

However, 26 of the 30 keywords did not include any city names. Assuming the computer that ran this report was not located in the same city as my customer, it’s not a surprise that a Charleston, SC company isn’t showing up on a computer in California, or Washington DC.

“Why would I want to be on Page One of Google on a computer in a city 2000 miles away?” I asked. I haven’t heard back.

Moral of this story – know you keyword phrases that you want to be on Page One of Google. If someone calls and says you’re not on Page One, ask them to search for YOUR phrases.

I hope this helps – if so, please “+1” us.

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Networking Event Richmond, VA – 3/27/2013

Wed, 20 Mar 2013 18:58:00 GMT

Search Engines for Small Businesses.

Please join Third Marble and dozens of other business owners as Third Marble’s own Chris Fawcett will de-mystify the process of getting more customers from Google.

What – Networking Event, Educational Seminar and Lunch

Where – Richmond Country Club ( map )

When – Wednesday, March 27, 2013 at 11:30.

How Much? The session is free, lunch is $15. (or the lunch is free and the session is $15.)

Topic: The Small Business Owner’s Secret Sauce for Getting on Google

Details:

Ever wonder why your small business website doesn’t help your phone ring? It’s probably because people that are searching for your products and services can’t find your website. Since most people use Google to search for local information, shouldn’t you know a little about how the search engine giant decides who gets top billing? This session will de-mystify Google for your small business and give you a basic understanding of Search Engine Optimization, how it works and how it can help your business grow – and how to avoid wasting money on the SEO scams. We’ll also discuss how “being on Page One of Google” doesn’t always mean more phone calls, and how it takes a complete Google strategy to turn your website into a marketing magnet.

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Website Design Basics for Small Businesses

Sat, 16 Mar 2013 18:19:00 GMT

Yes, most small businesses should have a website – and there are a lot of website designers that will be happy to build a website for you. At Third Marble, we talk to a lot of small business owners and ask them about their website designers . What we’ve learned is MOST web designers fall in to one of these three categories:

For small businesses, you typically can’t hire a team of diverse professionals and a project manager to build a website, so you hire “a guy that builds websites”, right?

The problem is, none of the guys above can deliver a Business Generating Website. Why not?

Well, the former graphic artist can deliver a website that looks very nice – but usually doesn’t have the Basic Search Engine Optimization . You need basic SEO to even have a chance of anyone finding your website on Google. They also tend to build websites that don’t convert very well – in other words, they’re great “ads” for your business, but they’ll often lack the strategies for “Direct Response” – ie. you want phone calls, but these sites will hide phone numbers on the “ Contact Us ” page instead of “cluttering up the site design” with information. So – if your customers can’t find your website, and if they do, they have to hunt for your phone number, all you have is a pretty website.

The former programmer is the polar opposite – the site is written using custom code, so the aesthetics are poor and the design is frequently very boxy. Sometimes they may know a little about SEO, but again they rarely know anything about designing a website for converting visitors to phone calls. The other negative we’ve seen with hiring a former programmer is they want to custom code everything – which means as new browsers, cell phones, tablets and other technologies emerge, your website may not render correctly on all these devices and you’ll have to re-build your site more frequently.

The former advertising guru can usually deliver a good looking website that converts well. They usually don’t know much about technology or SEO, so you have the same basic problem – no traffic to the website .

To have a Business Generating Website , you need a few basic ingredients. It’s rare to find a single person with all the needed skills to build you the complete package.

What are these basic ingredients?

If you found this helpful, please take a moment and click the “+1” button below.

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Groupon / Living Social Daily Deals – Small Business Owners be Prepared!

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 12:58:00 GMT

At Third Marble Marketing, we talk with numerous small business owners about their marketing plans, what they’ve tried, what works and what doesn’t. Many of our customers have tried the daily deal coupons like Groupon and Living Social . This article is a compilation of their stories, so that our other customers will know what they’re about to get into before they try it.

First, we need to understand the basics of the daily deal. The concept makes sense on the surface – drive a ton of traffic to your business with deep discounts via a mass localized email. You’ll breakeven (or perhaps lose a modest amount of money) on the deal, but the customers will return to buy again at full price. You’ve increased your customer base and your profits in the long term.

Sounds logical, right?

Well, here is a summary of some of the experiences Third Marble customers have had with the Groupon and Living Social daily deal coupons:

I’m not trying to talk you out of trying Groupon or Living Social. I’m simply trying to prepare you. Really think through the process you’re going to need when the coupons start to hit. Will you need additional phone support? Additional staff? Extra business cards, brochures, supplies, products? Is your website ready? How will you get them to buy from you again?

We’ve heard everything from horror stories to success stories with the daily deals. In general, those that were prepared found success. Those that were not did not.

We hope this helps!

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The “Increase your Revenue from Google” Equation

Fri, 12 Aug 2011 18:48:00 GMT

Increasing your business’s revenue from Google is really a numbers game. (I hate to do this, but it looks like you may need to dust off your old high school algebra book for this article.) Here are the basic variables: Someone sees your listing on Google (like a Google AdWords Ad, a Google Places listing […]

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The “Increase your Revenue from Google” Equation

Fri, 12 Aug 2011 18:48:00 GMT

Increasing your business’s revenue from Google is really a numbers game. (I hate to do this, but it looks like you may need to dust off your old high school algebra book for this article.)

Here are the basic variables:

So here’s the final equation:

Monthly Revenue from Google =

N x CTR% x Conv% x Close% x $

Here’s an example: Let’s assume your listings display 10,000 each month on Google (N = 10,000). You have a 2% Click Thru Rate on your ads (CTR% = 2%). 1 out of every 20 visitors to your website call you (Conv% = 5%). 2 out of every 5 people that call you become a customer (Close% = 40%). The average amount a customer spends with you is $1000 ($ = $1000). Your Revenue from Google should be about $4000 per month. (10,000 x .02 x .05 x .40 x $1000 = $4000)

So how do you make more money on Google?

Increase N – Get more impressions by increasing your visibility on Google .

Increase CTR% – Make sure your keywords are relevant and your listings are compelling.

Increase Conv% – Make sure your website gives a visitor a good reason to call you.

Increase Close% – Do you have a consistent closing process once someone calls you?

Increase $ – Do have strategies to increase your average revenue per customer?

OK – the math lesson is over, put your algebra book away and start thinking about this. The easiest thing to do first is work on the variable that is the weakest, or has the most potential for improvement. Here are some suggestions for finding the weakest variable:

If you aren’t getting many visitors to your website, there are two main things to look at:

Are you visible on Page One of Google? If you don’t know, request a Free Google Visibility Analysis and find out. If you need more visibility (ie. need to increase “N”), then try Pay per Click (PPC) with our One Month Trial , get on (or optimize) your Google Places account and do more SEO . Low visibility = low website visitors.

If you are getting lots of impressions (ie. your “N” is good), then your CTR% is too low . This is usually from either poorly written ads, or more commonly, your keywords aren’t very relevant to your business. The keywords may be too broad, or too narrow in focus. Re-evaluate your targeted keywords. Off-target keywords = low CTR%.

If you are getting lots of visitors to your website (ie. “ N x CTR% “ is good), but the phone never seems to ring, then look at:

Your website – does it give the visitor a compelling reason to call you? Is there a clear call-to-action like “call us for a free estimate”? Is your phone number clear and bold at the top of every page? Is your address at the top of every page (very important for local companies)? Does the look of your website match the qualities of your company? (In other words, if you are the low-cost leader, does it look inexpensive? If you are the high quality company, does you website look like a high quality site?) Bad website = low Conv%.

Your Keywords – Are they correctly targeted? Are they locally targeted? Are they targeted to the right geography? Are they exactly what someone would search for if they wanted exactly what you sell (ie. are they relevant)? Off-target keywords = off-target visitors = low Conv%.

If you are getting lots of phone calls , but never seem to close the calls, or if your average revenue from a customer is low, then take a good look at your closing process. Do you have a well-optimized closing process? Is it consistent and repeatable? Have you experimented with your closing process? Poor closing process = fewer customers and lower average revenue per customer.

Once you identify the weakest area, fix it. In the example above, the conversion rate (Conv%) was only 5%. If you fixed it and increased it to 10%, your revenue would jump to $8000 per month.

Continuing the process, if you then increased your monthly impressions from 10,000 to 20,000, your monthly revenue would climb to $16,000. If you were able to improve your Close Rate (Close%) from 40% to 60%, then your monthly revenue jumps to $24,000. Let’s say you then increased your average revenue from each customer ($) from $1000 to $1200. Now your monthly revenue is $28,800. Finally, if your Click Thru Rate were to increase from 2% to 2.5%, your monthly revenue would become $36,000.

Please remember, this is an academic exercise, and no one can guarantee such results. But you get the idea.

I hope this helps – if it does, please leave a reply, or click the “Like” button below.

Chris

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Relevant Google Advertising – the Pyramid

Tue, 07 Jun 2011 18:41:00 GMT

What makes a good Google Advertising campaign? In a word, “Relevance” : Are the visitors to your website from your Google Ads likely to buy your product or service? The idea is to get the people to your website that are looking to buy exactly what you are selling.

More “Traffic” to your website will not always bring you more business. More “Relevant Traffic” will bring you more business. As an example, if I were to drive 10,000 people to your website interested in winning $1000, you would get 10,000 visitors looking for free money. I doubt many of them would be interested in anything else on your website. However, if I were to drive 100 visitors to a website for a store in Anytown, VA that sold American flags, and all 100 of them lived within 10 miles of the store and they just searched Google for the phrase “American flag store in Anytown, VA”, you might expect to get a few phone calls.

To further illustrate the idea and importance of “Relevant Traffic”, I like to use the pyramid model:

At the top of the pyramid, the search phrases are very targeted to a business. Using my typical pizza restaurant example, the search terms at the top of the pyramid might be something like “Italian Restaurant Pizza Delivery Coupons in Anytown, VA”. This term is very specific and there aren’t very many websites that would want to be found for that phrase. The person that enters this phrase is looking for something very specific. If you owned an Italian restaurant in Anytown that delivered pizza and you had delivery coupons on your website, then this search phrase would be highly likely to get you a phone call. In other words, that visitor would be very “Relevant” to your business. On the other hand, this phrase isn’t searched for very frequently, probably only once or twice a month.

At the bottom of the pyramid, there are the phrases that are very broad in nature. As an example, the search phrase “restaurant” would be near the bottom of the pyramid. The person that enters “restaurant” as a search term could be looking for a job in a restaurant, a sub shop, hamburgers, breakfast, Chinese food, a restaurant that takes reservations for a client dinner, McDonalds, or even for a restaurant that’s for sale – in any city in the country also. So for the pizza restaurant mentioned previously, most of the people searching for “restaurant” would probably be “Irrelevant” and unlikely to convert to a customer.

Unfortunately, the easiest way to get a lot of traffic to a website is to target a few very broad terms – ie. target the irrelevant traffic at the bottom of the pyramid. This is how some other Pay per Click companies operate, so you need to be a little careful when selecting a Pay per Click company. Some of them tend to charge more since they will get you a ton of “traffic” to your website, but you may not get too many phone calls.

At Third Marble Marketing, we strive to make sure the traffic from our Local Google Advertising is Relevant Traffic from the top of the pyramid. Yes, we have to spend more time setting up hundreds of phrases from the top of the pyramid, instead of just three or four from the bottom. But whether you are spending $100 per month, or $1000 per month with Third Marble Marketing, we make sure you are getting the most relevant visitors for your money (so you can get the most customers for your money).

I hope this helps – if it does, please leave a reply, or click the “Like” button below.

The post Relevant Google Advertising – the Pyramid appeared first on Third Marble Marketing .

Where to Put KeyWords to get more Google Visibility (Part 2)

Wed, 18 May 2011 20:35:00 GMT

(If you haven’t read last month’s article on Where to Put KeyWords to get more Google Visibility (Part 1) , please read that article first. )

Continuing our discussion, this month, I want to describe the next few places to put your keywords to help improve your rankings in the search engines like Google. Last month we talked about the Title Tags, the Meta Description and the URL. While those are the three most important places to put your keywords, this month, we will discuss the next most important places that will get you just a little higher in the rankings – Header Tags, Alt Tags and Copy.

Header Tags

Once you have selected your ideal keyword phrase for a page on your website, you should incorporate as many of those keywords into the “Headline” of that page. In the image below, the phrase “Where to Put KeyWords to be on Page One of Google (Part 1)” is considered the Headline for the web page:

In the HTML for this web page, the Header Tags (sometimes called “H” Tags) define the Headline for a web page. It simply looks like this in the code:

<h1>Where to Put KeyWords to be on Page One of Google (Part 1)</h1>

(Hint: If you want to see the HTML for your web page, right click in any blank area of your web page and select “View Source” or “View Page Source”.)

The Header Tags on a web page are a lot like the headlines for newspaper articles – they tell the reader what the articles (or in this case the web page) are about. Google and the other search engines factor this thinking into their indexing algorithms, so it is important that your Header Tags (Headlines) contain keywords that people would search for to find your web site.

A great example of a bad headline is “Welcome to our Web Site”. That could be anyone’s website. For our pizza restaurant example, a better headline would be “ABC Pizza – A Pizza Restaurant in Anytown, VA”.

Alt Tags

Google and other search engines can’t understand images, so website images have “Alt Tags”. These tags are designed to be description of the image. Since “an image is worth a thousand words”, search engines often use the words in the Alt Tags in their search algorithms. Make sure your images all have meaningful Alt Tags that contain your ideal keywords. You can see the Alt Tag for an image by simply hovering your cursor over the image, like this:

An Example of how to see an Alt Tag.

Your Website Copy

Writing your website copy is always a challenge. Not only do you have to sell your customers on your product or service, you also have to make the copy search engine friendly. There are a few things that you should try to do with your website copy, but not at the expense of losing a potential phone call or customer. If you can, try to incorporate a few of these strategies in your copy writing:

If you don’t know how to make any of these changes yourself, your web person should be able to do it. These are easy changes to make, so don’t let your web person charge you too much either.

If you have any questions about this, feel free to contact us. In the meantime, if you think you need help with selecting your ideal keyword phrase, check out our Pay-per-Click Test . It’s a great way to drive traffic to your website AND research keywords for your business in you geographic area.

I hope this helps – if it does, please leave a reply below, or click the “Like” button below.

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Where to Put KeyWords to get more Google Visibility (Part 1)

Mon, 11 Apr 2011 18:45:00 GMT

Once you know your “ideal keyword phrase” (see last month’s article), you need to know where to put those words on your website. So the first thing we need to know about Google, and other search engines, is what they look for and how they index websites. In other words, how do search engines determine if your site is relevant to the keywords being entered? There are numerous things that make up the search algorithms. I believe these are the most important factors:

Search Engine Optimization of URLs

Let’s say your “ideal keyword phrase” is “pizza restaurant Anytown VA”. If your URL is “www.mom-and-pop-italian.com”, this isn’t going to help much. If you have extra money to spend, consider buying the URL “www.pizza-restaurant-anytown-va.com” and having someone create a second website for you. If that’s not practical, then you may want to ask your web person to change the URL for your home page to “www.mom-and-pop-italian.com/pizza-restaurant-anytown-va”.

If the URLs on some of your pages look like “www.mom-and-pop-italian.com/page=123”, then change the “/page=123” to “/pizza-restaurant”. If these options aren’t appealing, don’t worry, we have a few more tricks.

A little about Google

Before we get into Title Tags, I’d like to talk a little about Google. Google’s mission is to provide their searchers with the most relevant search results possible. So when someone enters keywords into Google, what Google displays on their Search Results Page better have those keywords, otherwise Google will look foolish. Makes sense, right? So if we understand what shows up on their search results, we’ll know where to put our keywords. Below is a screen shot of a search result…

Three pieces of a Google Search Result and where they come from.

A = Title Tag, B = Meta Description, C = URL

So if the Title Tag, the Meta Description and the URL are what Google is showing you in their search engine results, then it stands to reason that they would be the most important words on a website for search engine optimization. If these three elements contain your ideal keyword phrase, then you’ve greatly increased your chances of being on Page One.

Search Engine Optimization of Title Tags

If you want to know what your current Title Tag is on your website’s home page is, simply go to your website and look in the far upper right of browser window, or, if you have browser tabs, you can find it there. Here is an example of where to look:

This shows the location of the Title Tag and the URL.

Once you know your “ideal keyword phrase”, change your Title Tag so it matches your ideal keyword phrase. Your Title Tag should be less than 60 characters, including spaces. You should also avoid short words like “in”, “at”, “the”, etc. Try not to repeat any one word more than once or Google will think you are spamming your Title Tag. In the pizza example, a good Title Tag might be “ Pizza Restaurant Anytown VA | Italian Restaurant | Delivery ” (59 characters).

Search Engine Optimization of Meta Descriptions

The Meta Description cannot be seen on your website or in your browser window. It’s part of your website code that your web person added. Here’s what one looks like:

To see your Meta Description, right click in an open area of your website’s home page, then click on “View Source” to see the html code for your home page. If you don’t see a line in the code that starts with “<meta name=”description” content=” , then you may not have a meta description on your home page.

To optimize your Meta Description, simply make the first few words the same as your Title Tag. Meta Descriptions should be less than 150 characters, but they can be a little longer. Do not repeat words too many times, or again, Google will think you are spamming. Remember this is the copy that a potential customer will read on Google’s search results page. Make sure it is written in complete sentences and is free of misspellings. Not only do you want people to see your search result, but you also want them to click on it. This is somewhat of an art form. You need to create compelling copy that sells to help drive more traffic to your website, but also maximize the keyword usage. For the pizza restaurant example, a Meta Description would be something like:

Pizza restaurant in Anytown, VA. Enjoy our Italian restaurant favorites like pizza, spaghetti, lasagna and more. Pizza delivery and carry out available. (152 characters).

Next time, I’ll talk about more about Header Tags, Alt Tags, images, copy and other ways to Get on More Visibility on Google . In the meantime, if you think you need help with selecting your ideal keyword phrase, check out our Pay-per-Click Tests. Run a couple of months of Pay-per-Click ads, and we can tell you exactly which keyword phrases drive the most traffic to your website in your geographic area.

I hope this helps – if it does, please leave a reply below, or click the “Like” button below.

The post Where to Put KeyWords to get more Google Visibility (Part 1) appeared first on Third Marble Marketing .

The “Key” to SEO – Selecting the Right Keywords.

Fri, 04 Mar 2011 18:45:00 GMT

This article is the second in a series written for small, local business owners about Do It Yourself Search Engine Optimization (SEO). SEO is the art of getting your website on Page One of Google. In this article, I’m going to discuss the basics behind creating your “ideal keyword phrase”. In my next few articles, I’ll describe ways to strategically place this phrase on your website and other websites to get your business on Page One of Google.

For small, local businesses that want to be listed on Page One of Google, the “key to keywords” is selecting a good phrase that best describes your business AND your location. Once you determine a good phrase for your business, you can start adding that phrase strategically throughout your website and other places on the internet. This should dramatically increase your chances of being on Page One of Google when someone enters that phrase.

The ideal phrase for most local businesses should be a combination of two basic phrases – the “WHAT” phrase and the “WHERE” phrase.

First, let’s talk about the “WHERE” phrase. Small businesses often find it difficult to compete with national companies or franchises. These large companies often have large budgets, can afford the very best SEO guys and can dominate keywords on a national level. For a small business with small budgets, the idea is to dominate the local level since most of your customers probably come from within 10 or 20 miles of your location. By adding your business’s city and state to your “ideal keyword phrase”, your website can appear above the national companies on Page One of Google. It is important to select your business’s location and make sure it’s the exact city in your physical location’s address. In other words, if you are located in a suburb of a major city, don’t try to use the name of the major city. I’ll discuss the reasons why this is important when I talk about how to optimize your Google Places page .

Now, let’s look at how to find good keywords for the “WHAT” phrase. If you want to spend the money, most decent SEO companies can generate a list of keywords for you. If you don’t want to spend the money, you can do it yourself. Here’s how:

You should have a list of a few circled phrases. If one or two stand out as clear winners, that’s your phrase.

If you want a more scientific way to determine your best WHAT phrase, ask us about Third Marble Marketing’s SEO Suggestion Report.

To finish, simply add the “WHAT” phrase to the “WHERE” phrase. For example, if you own a pizza shop in Anytown, VA, your keyword phrase might be “pizza restaurant Anytown VA”. If your pizza restaurant has a very profitable pizza delivery service, then your keyword phrase might be “pizza delivery Anytown, VA”.

In my next article, I’ll discuss what you should do with this keyword phrase to get your business exposure on Page One of Google .

I hope this helps – if it does, please leave a reply below, or click the “Like” button below.

The post The “Key” to SEO – Selecting the Right Keywords. appeared first on Third Marble Marketing .

Getting the Most from your Google Places Account.

Fri, 04 Mar 2011 18:44:00 GMT

Small Business Owners: If you don’t have a Google Places Account for your business, you should set one up right away. Google Places is how you get your business to display on Google Maps. Not having a Google Places Account is like not having a listing in the Yellow Pages back in the 1980’s. Setting up a Google Places Account doesn’t take much time and it’s a great way to advertise your business – for free. Just go to places.google.com to set yours up.

If you already have a Google Places Account, to get the most out of it, you need to optimize it. Optimizing means to “teach” Google to display your listing when someone enters your search phrase. For more on how to pick your search phrase, see my article on “ The “Key” to SEO – Selecting the right Keywords ”.

The purpose of today’s article is to give you a few tips to help your Google Places Account get listed on Page One of Google’s search results.

Google Places Optimization Tip #1:

The first trick is to find the right keyword phrase for your local business. For more on how to do this, see my article titled “The Key to SEO – Selecting the Right Keywords”.
As an example for this article, if you own a pizza restaurant in Anytown, VA, then your keyword phrase should probably be “pizza restaurant Anytown, VA”. The first half of the phrase describes WHAT your business is and would be something that a person would enter into a search engine (ie. “pizza restaurant”). The second half is WHERE you are located (ie. “Anytown, VA”).

Google Place Optimization Tip #2:

Once you have the right keyword phrase, change your Google Places description so that it includes that exact phrase as the first few words, like this:

“Pizza Restaurant in Any Town, VA. Our pizza restaurant sells pizza, subs, gyros and Italian dishes. Pizza delivery and carry-out available. Serving Any Town, Major City and Tiny Suburb, VA.”

Google Places Optimization Tip #3:

Next, make sure your Google Places Categories are all optimized. You get five categories to choose from. The first one has to be from Google’s pre-determined categories. In our example, we would select “Pizza Restaurant”. The next four categories can be any phrase you want. You may want to try different variations of phrases that some would enter into a search engine to find what you sell, like: “pizza delivery”, “pizza coupons”, “Italian food” and “Italian restaurant”.

There is a section at the end of the Google Places set-up screen called “Additional Details”. This is a section that allows you to add any additional details about your company. This is a good place to reinforce your keywords again. Remember, most people when looking for a business like yours will enter keywords that describe what they need. Google uses the example “Parking available : Yes”. “Parking” is probably not something I would search for if I was looking for pizza. However, I might search Google for “Pizza delivery”, so “Pizza Delivery : Yes” would be a good option. You might also consider phrases like “Restaurant type : Italian”, “Carry-out : yes”, “Pizza coupons : Available on Website”, etc… If you need ideas for keywords, your Pay-per-Click data is an excellent source. If you don’t have any Pay-per-Click data, check out our $900 Google Trial.

Add a link to your Google Places pages to your website. Once your Google Places page is up, in the upper right corner, there is a link called “Link”. If you click that link, it will give you the URL for your Google Places Page.

Google Places Optimization Tip #6:

Get your customers to add reviews to your Google Places page. The easiest way to do this is to ask your best customers to go to your website, click the link you made in Tip #5, and add a review. These reviews make your page stand out and people tend to trust someone with 10 reviews and a 4.8 star rating. Never add any reviews yourself!

Google Places Optimization Tip #7:

Add several images to your Google Places Account. I like to rename the images to they match the company’s keyword phrase. In other words, if the image you are about to add is “IMG1023.jpg”, then rename it something like “pizza-restaurant-anytown-va-1.jpg” before adding it to your Google Places Account.

Google Places Optimization Tip #8:

Add a YouTube video. Google owns YouTube, so if you have a video on YouTube, add it. If you can, make the name of the video your keyword phrase – ie. “Pizza Restaurant Anytown, VA”.

Google Places Optimization Tip #9:

Make sure your Google Places Account is complete. Fill out all the fields you can, including the “Hours of operation” and “Payment options”.

If your listing doesn’t show up in a month or two for your keyword phrase, then try a new keyword phrase and re-optimize your Places Account. If you want to get even more from your Google Places Account, call us to find out how we can use Google Pay-per-Click to increase the traffic to your Google Places Account.

I hope this helps – if it does, please leave a reply below, or click the “Like” button below.

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Website Traffic – Is More Good or Bad?

Tue, 15 Feb 2011 17:11:00 GMT

I don’t get it.

Why do small business owners let other online advertising agencies get away with the “Website Traffic Scam”?

Don’t know what I’m talking about? Then you may be a victim also. Let me explain.

In simple terms, you can classify website traffic two ways – visitors that want to do business with you and visitors that won’t. If someone is searching for what you sell and they live near your location, then they’ll probably buy from you. If they don’t live near your small business or they aren’t searching for what you sell, they probably won’t.

You see, I can drive 10,000 visitors to anyone’s website. But, I guarantee they will NEVER buy from you. All I have to do is build a bunch of links to you website that say “Free Money”. Do you think anyone that clicked on that link will buy your product or service? No. But I drove “traffic”, right? But how much would you pay a company to drive 10,000 visitors to your website? $1000? What a deal! That’s only 10 cents per visitor!

What if I could drive 50 visitors to your website for $100? That sounds like a bad deal right? That’s $2.00 per visitor – 20 times the cost as the deal above.

Let’s say you own a small Maid Service in Anytown, USA. What if those visitors to your website just entered the search term “Maid Service in Anytown, USA” into Google and they live with in 10 miles of your location? How many of those visitors to your website would pick-up the phone and call you about your service? 1 in 10? 1 in 20? Each phone call would cost you around $20-$40 dollars. If the profit from your average customer is $200, then you would make money (about $160-$180 per customer).

By contrast, if you spend $1000 on worthless traffic to get zero phone calls from 10,000 visitors that don’t live near you that were looking for Free Money, you just lost $1000.

I’m exaggerating to make a point – not all traffic is created equal – and not all traffic will drive new customers. Be careful when you hire an advertising agency that promises traffic, not customers. Don’t fall victim to the “Website Traffic Scam”.

I hope this helps.

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Three Ways to be on Page One of Google

Tue, 25 Jan 2011 23:19:00 GMT

If you want your local business to be on Page One of Google , you should know the three main ways to be on Page One, and have three strategies to get there. If all three strategies work, your business can be listed on Page One of Google Three Times . Since there are usually only 20 spots on Page One, your business would own 15 % of the page!

1. SEO – Appearing in the “Natural” Results Section

The first strategy is SEO, or Search Engine Optimization. This is the art / science of convincing Google that your website is the most relevant website for a particular set of search terms. With a good SEO strategy, your business can be in the “Organic” or “Natural” results section of Google’s Search Results Page. For a local business, the first step is to know what to optimize for. In most cases, it would be the combination of the phrase that best describes your product or service and the city and state your are located. Keep an eye out for my next post on how to identify good phrases for your business. After identifying the right keywords to optimize for, the next step is to change your title tags, meta descriptions, headlines, copy and perhaps your URL’s to contain those keywords you are trying to optimize for. There are numerous other methods for climbing the page ranks, so we always recommend hiring an experienced SEO expert to this for you.

2 – Google Places (now called “Google + Local”) – Appearing in the Map Section

If you enter a locally oriented phrase into Google’s Search Engine, Google will typically display a map of that local area with “pins” that show the location of the business you are searching for. These “pins” are typically linked to a Google Places Page. If you don’t have a Google Places Page set-up for your company, then just do it. Here’s a guide to Google Places . The trick to being on Page One of Google is to set-up one of your Categories as a pre-defined Google Category, then set the other four available Categories to match your targeted keywords on your website. (Again, keep an eye out for my next post on how to find your ideal Keywords.) You should also make sure your company’s description has your target keywords as well.

3 – Google Pay-Per-Click – Appearing in the “Sponsored Links” or “Ads” Section

This is the fastest and most reliable way to be on Page One of Google. However, it’s also the most expensive. Pay-Per-Click (PPC) is exactly what it says – you pay every time someone clicks on your ad. It is also the most effective. Why? Because SEO and Google Places can only be optimized for a handful of keyword phrases. If you offer many different services, it’s nearly impossible to be on Page One of Google for them all. PPC is the best way to make sure someone looking for any of your services finds you. The other reason it is the most effective is you can also go very broad with your keyword phrases. It’s fairly easy to optimize a website or a Google Places Page for a term like “pizza delivery Anytown, VA”, but not so easy for a local company to get the phrase “pizza delivery”. With PPC, you can bid on the term “pizza delivery” and be on Page One.

If you have an online marketing consultant tell you one of these methods is better than the other – run. If someone enters a search term related to your business into Google, wouldn’t you want to be on Page One as many times as possible? For the right keyword phrases, I always recommend trying to be on Page One of Google as many times as you possibly can.

I hope this helps – if it does, please leave a reply below, or click the “Like” button below.

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The most effective Online Marketing Strategies for Small Businesses.

Mon, 13 Dec 2010 21:17:00 GMT

If you’re just getting started in business, or you’re just beginning to advertise your small business online, here are the four most effective online marketing strategies that, in general, pay the highest dividends:

I like to break these online marketing strategies into two types of strategies – Prospecting and Re-marketing. SEO and PPC are very effective at finding new customers, so I like to think of them as primarily Prospecting strategies. To get the most from Email and Social Media, you really need a list of customers to contact – so these are mostly effective at ‘Re-marketing’ to your existing customers. While yes, SEO and PPC can help re-market to existing customers and Email and Social Media can help attract new customers, but that’s really not their respective primary focus.

You should also understand that these four online marketing strategies synergize with one another, they do not compete. As you develop one online marketing strategy, make sure your other strategies, including your off-line marketing, assist one another for maximum effectiveness. How? Ask for an email address in your Social Media efforts, make your links from your Social Media pages agree with your SEO efforts, try pointing your PPC ads at your Facebook site, create your offline ads to drive people to your Social Media pages, email and/or your Google Places page.

There are certain Pros and Cons to each of these online marketing strategies as well:

SEO – Pros:

SEO – Cons:

PPC with Third Marble – Pros:

PPC with Third Marble – Cons:

Email Marketing – Pros:

Email Marketing – Cons:

Social Media – Pros:

Social Media – Cons:

If you’re like most small business owners and you want to try something online that takes very little of your time, is easy to change at a moments notice, doesn’t cost too much and you don’t have to wait months to see results – try Pay-per-Click. We can get you on Page One in a few days plus we make it easy and affordable to try – read about our Three Step Process and give us a call.

I hope this helps – if it does, please leave a reply below, or click the “Like” button below.

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Beware of “Tracking Phone Numbers”.

Tue, 23 Nov 2010 17:19:00 GMT

At Third Marble Marketing, we’ve recently won-over a few new clients that had a difficult time dealing with online advertising companies that use “tracking phone numbers” to track calls for their clients. A Tracking Phone Number is a different number than your business’s phone number, called a Voice Over IP phone number, that instantly re-directs to your business’s phone number. Each time someone calls the tracking phone number, the call statistics are recorded so you know how many times the phone number was dialed. They are intended to show how many calls an online advertising campaign produced.

Third Marble Marketing briefly used tracking phone calls in the past and, based on our client’s experiences with them, we now highly recommend to our clients not to use them. If your current online advertising company is using tracking phone numbers to “prove your marketing ROI”, we recommend you use extreme caution when interpreting the results you get.

As with any industry, there are always a few companies out to make a quick buck. Based on a few horror stories from several small business owners we’ve talked to, there are some online advertising companies that use these tracking phone numbers to “over-value” their advertising services to the unsuspecting small business owner.

Here are a few things you should look-out for:

Basically, if you get 100 phone calls from a tracking phone number, just beware that only a fraction of them are probably incremental calls from actual new prospective customers.

We must add, however, that there are many reputable online advertising companies that can very effectively interpret the results from these phone numbers. The above advice is simply meant to be a list of things to look for when using tracking phone numbers.

In the end, it’s all about making more money. If you begin an online advertising program and your business increases, then you are getting good results from your advertising. However, if your business does not improve, and your reports are showing 100 phone calls, your monthly advertising expenses just increased by $1000 and your original phone number is getting fewer calls, you may want to carefully review the performance of your online advertising company.

As a policy, Third Marble Marketing does not use tracking phone numbers. In our opinion, the results are difficult to interpret at best and they are an added expense that we would pass along to you, that we feel will not provide any added-value to your business.

We prefer to keep online advertising easy, effective and affordable. After all, how hard is it to ask a new customer “How did you hear about us?”

I hope this helps.

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What do you mean by Effective?

Mon, 08 Nov 2010 13:39:00 GMT

I was asked the other day by a client “ What do consider effective
Google Advertising? ” The answer is fairly simple if we can break it down to simple math and I’ll answer this by example. First, let’s make some assumptions:

Doing the math, the maximum cost per customer is $250 and 1 in every 5 phone calls yields a new customer, so each phone call needs to cost less than $50. To get a phone call, we need to drive 20 visitors to your website, so the most you would want to pay for a visitor to your website is $2.50. So for this particular business example, for every $100 you spend with Third Marble Marketing, as long as you get about 40 visitors, you should be making money with our Google Advertising Service.

(By the way, you should apply this logic to all your advertising efforts to make sure you’re not losing money.)

“So how can you claim that your Google Advertising Service is Effective ?”

At Third Marble Marketing, we do things a little differently. Instead of setting-up very broad keywords for our clients, we set-up keywords that are more likely to generate a phone call. As we collect more data about what your website visitors are entering into Google, we react to that data and adjust the keywords to generate more phone calls and fewer visitors. How? By asking the simple question “If I wanted to buy from your company, would I have entered this into Google?” If not, then we try to eliminate that keyword phrase from your campaign. Not only does this help eliminate searches that are unrelated to your business, it also help pre-qualify the searcher as a person that is more likely to become a customer.

Using some of the terms we created above, our philosophies on managing your Google Advertising campaign help ensure a highly relevant visitor to your website, which helps:

We’ve seen it from others in the past. A company will charge you to set-up a campaign in Google and they only set-up a few very broad keywords. Let’s say you’re a Car insurance Agent. If your Google Pay-per-Click company sets-up the keyword “insurance”, you’ll get clicks from people looking for “home insurance”, “life insurance”, “business insurance”, “insurance adjusters”, “auto body shops that take my insurance”, etc… What happens? You get irrelevant / ineffective traffic to your website and you just paid for nothing. We work hard to try to eliminate this ineffective advertising.

If you’re shopping around for a Google Pay-per-Click management company, make sure you ask them how many keywords phrases they plan to set-up for you. If the answer is less than 100, hang-up the phone. They are going to set-up a very broad campaign that will most likely waste your money.

I hope this helps.

The post What do you mean by Effective? appeared first on Third Marble Marketing .

Is Your Google Advertising Working?

Fri, 22 Oct 2010 13:46:00 GMT

There are several ways to track the effectiveness and the profitability of your Google Advertising. The most popular is to add a unique “ghost” phone number to your website and your ads that you can track independently of your business’s main phone number. Many of our competitors offer this service. We find that it’s usually not necessary, in fact, we recommend that small businesses stay away from these phone numbers. They can create some issues. In particular, what happens when your customers add the ghost phone number to their contact list / cell phone / adddress book? Two potential issues can occur:

Why not keep it simple? Just ask your customer how they found you. Most new customers don’t mind being asked “How did you find out about us?” They’ll usually tell you “A friend told me about you”, or “I saw you ad in the newspaper”, or “I looked you up online”.

Keep a notebook by the phone or at your front desk. Train your staff to ask the question of each new customer, then keep a very simple tic sheet in the notebook. You should have a category for each of the advertising efforts you pay for, like the newspaper ads, the internet, the Yellow Pages as well as a few categories for things like referrals, networking, etc.

At the end of each month, just add up all the ticks for each category. If you’re spending most of your advertising money on newspaper ads, or TV ads, but they are the categories with the smallest number of new customers, then you need to think about adjusting your advertising budgets in those areas.

If you’re a re a customer of Third Marble Marketing and you are getting very few new customers saying “the internet”, or “Google”, then call us so we can make some adjustments. We’re here to make sure your Google Advertising Service is profitable for your business.

I hope this helps.

The post Is Your Google Advertising Working? appeared first on Third Marble Marketing .

Why does Third Marble Marketing only specialize in Google?

Tue, 12 Oct 2010 12:53:00 GMT

The answer is pretty simple – we don’t want to waste your money.

Put another way, we feel strongly that a local business with a limited advertising budget needs to be smart. Advertising on the internet is complicated and there are thousands of ways to advertise. A business owner could very easily spend tens of thousands of dollars each month if they signed up for every online advertising program available in their area. Yet, in our experience, Google would only be a few hundred dollars of that budget and deliver over half of all the visitors. The problem, of course, all the other online advertising is very expensive and doesn’t deliver as many new customers. The business owner doesn’t get nearly as good a return on the money they spent on the non-Google Advertising. Why not? Several reasons:

In case you haven’t heard, Google is the biggest Search Engine – bigger than all other search engines combined. Unless you’re advertising your local business to the maximum in Google, it really doesn’t make any sense to advertise on any other website. You would just be wasting time and resources, and possibly getting even fewer visitors to your website (for the same advertising spend).

Google is the biggest for one reason -they deliver the most relevant search results without any headaches – including their Sponsored Links. People trust Google and most people go to Google first. So if you have a limited online advertising budget, why not spend it where most of your customers are looking?

That’s why we ONLY focus on Local Google Advertising – to make sure local businesses with limit budgets spend their time and advertising money as effectively as possible – in other words:

“Local Google Advertising – the Easy, Effective and Affordable Way!”

The post Why does Third Marble Marketing only specialize in Google? appeared first on Third Marble Marketing .

Starting a Google Places Account for your Business

Wed, 15 Sep 2010 20:23:00 GMT

If you don’t already have a Google Places account for your small business, it’s really pretty easy to set one up. Just go to Google .com/ places and sign up. You simply fill-out the information about your business and click submit. Google will then verify your information by calling your phone number with an automated message. That message will contain a 5-digit PIN number that you will need to enter into your Google Places account. That’s it.

By completing the Google Places account, your business will begin to appear on Google Maps . Potential customers can then find you on the map and click to your website, or get your contact information directly from your Google Places page. They can also leave a review of your products and services so others will know that you’re a quality company. If you have any questions about Google Places, send an email to GooglePlaces@ThirdMarbleMarketing.com. We’ll be happy to help you out.

You can also link your Google Advertising to your Google Places account. If someone is searching for you locally, then a map will appear below your Google Advertisement like this:

Here’s an example of how a Google Places Account helps your Google Advertising

After you get your Google Places set-up, you’ll want to make sure you get the most from it. One of the best ways to do that would be to advertise your website and your new Google Places page using Google Advertising . The easiest way to try Google Advertising is to get started with our Three Step Process .

I hope this helps.

Our Google Places page .

The post Starting a Google Places Account for your Business appeared first on Third Marble Marketing .

Stop by and see us at BizLinc in Richmond, VA

Fri, 06 Aug 2010 11:56:00 GMT

If you’re planning to attend the BizLinc conference in Richmond, VA this year, we’ll have a booth in the exhibit hall. Stop by and see how we can help your business grow when you advertise on Google.

We hope to see you there!

The post Stop by and see us at BizLinc in Richmond, VA appeared first on Third Marble Marketing .

Welcome to Third Marble Marketing

Wed, 04 Aug 2010 21:23:00 GMT

Thank you for visiting Third Marble Marketing today. As a small business owner, I hope that we could help answer some of your questions about Local Advertising on Google. If you’re one of our clients, feel free to leave a message here on our blog about your experiences with Google and Third Marble Marketing.

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