encompass blog

  • Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
01/15/2018

PPC Trends—A Year in Review

Per-per-click marketing is always evolving—sometimes in obvious and dramatic ways, sometimes in small and incremental ones. For the most part, 2017 fell into that second category. Though there’s not one, massive upheaval you can point to, there were plenty of little ways in which the PPC landscape shifted—and some of them may be things that you missed.

  • Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
11/06/2017

Why Retailers Need Amazon AND Search

When it comes to marketing, it’s generally a good idea not to put all your eggs in one basket. This is certainly true for retailers, who face a number of questions about how online consumers seek and find new products—via Amazon, or through Google, Bing, and Yahoo. The answer, of course, is a little bit of both, but really understanding it requires a nuanced perception of the consumer journey.

  • Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
  • Marketing
10/29/2017

How Voice Search Impacts Your Search Strategy

As you are no doubt aware, the world of search has changed dramatically over the last few years—and one of the most seismic shifts has been with the medium itself. Where search engine queries were once largely confined to desktop computers, the increased prevalence of mobile devices means that more and more searches are conducted on the go. In fact, mobile searches are more common than desktop ones, something that has key implications for marketers. One such implication is that mobile users—increasingly reluctant to type out a full search query with their thumbs—are using voice search more than ever before.

  • Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
10/19/2017

Why PPC Remains One of the Best Marketing Tools

You are no doubt familiar with PPC advertising, even if you’ve never leveraged it on your brand’s behalf. You see PPC ads every time you conduct a Google search; these ads are located on the top and bottom of the page, beyond the standard organic search results. For those who are only passingly familiar, PPC stands for pay-per-click marketing; basically, a system wherein you pay for each time your ad gets clicked by a search engine user. PPC exists in many forms, though the best known is probably Google AdWords. More to the point of our discussion today, PPC ads represent one of the most effective ways to build your brand online.

But what makes PPC so valuable to marketers? That’s what we’re going to address in this post.

  • Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
  • Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
10/15/2017

Local SEO Tips Every Brick and Mortar Needs

There is an ongoing misconception that search engine optimization (SEO) is primarily a concern for digitally-based businesses—that brick and mortar stores don’t have the same need to establish search engine visibility. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Even if your company doesn’t conduct transactions online, consumers use search engines to find local companies—and if your business isn’t present in local searches, you’ll miss out on significant foot traffic.

  • Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
  • Websites
08/01/2017

Writing Great Meta Descriptions for Your Website

When it comes to optimizing your website, it is important to take full advantage of every square inch of online real estate that you can. One opportunity that often goes underutilized is the meta description. Though it’s fairly easy to craft a compelling meta description for your website—and though the benefits of doing so are potentially quite significant—it somehow slips through the cracks or is simply deemed unimportant. In this post, we’ll explain what the meta description is and why it matters, then provide some general tips on writing a good one.

  • Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
  • Google Insights
07/25/2017

An Introduction to AdWords Extensions

One of the many perks of AdWords is that it allows you to claim more of the search engine results page (SERP) than you could ever claim through organic reach alone; paid ads buy you access to corners of online real estate that SEO simply cannot penetrate. It stands to reason, then, that anything you can do to make your paid ads bigger—that is, to expand them to further corners of the SERP—is ultimately going to be worthwhile. And as it happens, there are some effective ways to do exactly that, specifically by including AdWords extensions.

  • Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
  • Websites
04/12/2017

Make Your Website Content SEO-Friendly

In creating content for their company website, many small business owners feel torn. On the one hand, they wand to develop a site that’s pleasing to potential customers, and helps them brand themselves effectively. On the other hand, they want to make sure they have all the technical elements in place to find favor with Google’s search algorithms.

  • Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
03/21/2017

Internal Linking is the Backbone of SEO

With algorithmic updates happening regularly, and new SEO strategies making headlines seemingly every day, it’s easy for marketers to get caught up in the rush of what’s new. We can’t let fresh strategies or industry trend distract us completely from the tried-and-true practices that remain at the bedrock of effective marketing, though. One of those practices—not at all flashy, but deeply significant to any effort at successful SEO—is internal content linking.

  • Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
02/27/2017

Are You Practicing the Right Kind of SEO?

Practicing SEO requires you to make many decisions each day—but the most foundational decision you make is this: Will you engage in white hat SEO practices, or black hat? Or, to put it differently, will you be one of the good guys, or will you choose instead to be an outlaw?