Nashville Digital Marketing Firms interested in being acquired.

Cabedge.com is looking to acquire Nashville-based digital marketing firms to help us server our clients.

We are primarily looking digital marketing companies with:

  • 1 to 15 employees
  • Proven success in digital marketing
  • Heavy SEO skills
  • In-house content generation skills

Contact us at info@atiba.com to talk more on!

Thanks!

driving online traffic featured image

How to Generate More Organic Traffic

There are a variety of ways to bring traffic to a website, but the best and most sought after is organic traffic. Organic traffic is traffic brought to a website through any means other than paid traffic — people find a website through a search engine or type it into the URL bar.

someone driving online traffic

1. Use the power of social media.
Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, Pinterest — the options are endless when it comes to using social media. In a social media dominated world, it’s important to get involved with the platforms that suit your organization the best. Not only is it important to get on those platforms, but it’s important to use them to interact with clients or consumers. Social media has the power to help individuals form relationships with one another to then improve reach of blog posts and information even more.

2. Enhance your SEO.
SEO is a monster to master. There’s so much that can be done, but the most important thing is to be consistent with your efforts. There are big things you can do with SEO and there are small things you can do. You can improve your SEO dramatically by using Google’s Keyword Planner. This tool helps you determine what people are searching to find the information they are looking for. You can also do things like write meta descriptions, adjust the alt text of your images, and link to internal content with creative anchor text. The options are endless when it comes to improving your SEO – it just matters if you want to start big or small.

3. Host a contest.
A contest can be hosted on social media or on your main website. You can give out a large prize or a small prize. You can give out one prize or multiple prizes. Really, there is no limit on the options available when hosting a contest. The important thing about a contest is to engage your audience. They should be giving something to you (engagement with your website or your social media profiles) while you’re also giving something to them.

4. Utilize video.
Users love consuming video. It’s an easily digestible form of content that can be chockfull of information for users. Also, if your consumers are used to seeing long-form written content, a video can spice things up and re-attract people to your website. Adding video, especially auto-play video, can make your website more engaging, ensuring users stay there longer and in turn improve our SEO.

5. Write long-form content.
Long-form content (typically a piece over 1,200 words) has the ability to elicit higher engagement from consumers. Because long-form content is focused on providing valuable information on a specific topic, it is more likely to draw the attention of readers. Long-form content is more likely to get into the specifics of a topic than a 500-800 word piece, which means more keywords can be found within the content to rank for.

6. Create relationships with other organizations.
Don’t think of them as competition, think of other organizations as potential promoters. You see it all the time in the blogging world — people working with others in their industry to promote one product or another.

7. Write eye-catching headlines.
Headlines are the first piece of text someone sees about a story. It’s the hook that should reel someone in to click on a link. If you focus a little bit of effort on perfecting the headline of a piece of content, you are sure to attract more consumers as well as improve your SEO at the same time.

8. Utilize email marketing.
Email marketing is highly overrated these days. It’s the one bit of content you actually own that can benefit you. It’s a direct connection between you and a consumer. Using email can be tricky — you don’t want to overwhelm your consumer with a ton of emails which could lead to them unsubscribing, but you want to utilize this chain of communication to best serve your organization. Stick with zippy emails that engage but don’t overload. Offer special access to information/deals. Keeps them around so they actually want to engage with your information.

9. Build a community.
Through the power of the Internet, the world feels a lot smaller these days. It’s easier for people to connect, especially over brands or companies. There are Facebook pages for people who have certain hobbies, forums for people to discuss their favorite movies, and there can be a place for your organization to connect with consumers and have consumers connect with each other. Allowing for comments and conversation means a place for connection, just make sure to set rules and guidelines (like respect all opinions) if you’re going to make commenting a big part of your outreach.

10. Guest blog and ask for a guest blog in return.
Guest blogging is not dead. Guest blogging is alive and well, and your website might benefit from it. First of all, if you’re not blogging, you should start. Blogging is a great way to consistently create content and connect with consumers. Second of all, blogging is a great way to collaborate with other people in your market, or not in your market. Branch out by getting a guest post from someone in a totally different sector and contribute to their blog yourself. By branching out, you’ll reach a whole new potential market and therefore increase your organic traffic.


Driving more organic traffic to your website can be hard, but it’s not impossible. It takes a little more time and whole lot more effort, but anyone can do it. If you’re looking for help in gaining more traffic through organic methods, contact Cabedge today! With a team of SEO and online traffic experts, we are sure to have someone that should be able to help you reach your goals.

5 Reasons Why Your Company Needs a Professional Website

It’s 2018. People spend almost over 10 hours a day in front of screen, but some businesses still don’t have their own websites. With social media, some organizations may not think it’s necessary to have their own websites, but that’s simply not the case. Having a website gives your business a leg up on the competition, even if the competition already has a website. Read on to find out the top five reasons your organization should invest in a professional website today.

man working on a website

1. It’s a platform you own and control.
It’s great to be on social media, but when algorithms change (I’m looking at you Instagram) it can be frustrating. When you have your own website, you get to control exactly what information is out there, and when and how that information is displayed to users. When you have your own website, you’re not subject to anyone’s control — you make all the decisions. You can also make it as unique or standard as you’d like. The greatest thing about having your own website is that it’s YOURS.

2. Grow your audience.
Having a website means you aren’t limited in who you reach. It’s the World-Wide Web for a reason. Even if you’ve only got one brick-and-mortar shop, you can reach hundreds of people who never would have otherwise known that your business existed. Having a website also provides your business with another platform to sell goods or services. In a world that can feel large and distant sometimes, a website can connect your business with all the corners of the globe.

3. Gives your business credibility.
People are increasingly turning to the Internet for answers to their questions. This is even more true for people that own smart-speakers like Google Home or Alexa. When someone searches for “the best pie in Nashville,” you want your website to show up. You might not be on the first page at the beginning, but with a professionally designed website and a digital marketing firm on your team, you’re website is sure to rise in the rankings.

4. Easily provide information.
Websites are increasingly important to get information out quickly to all consumers. Yes, you can put this information on social media, but your website is a one-stop-shop for all the information any consumer may need about your business. Not everyone may be on social media, but almost everyone can find a website if they have an Internet connection, which should answer any questions they may have. This is helpful when your store hours change, when you’re having a sale, or when there is a community event happening. Having a website truly makes it easier to communicate with your mass audience of consumers. And you can control whatever information gets out there and how long it is available.

5. Save money in the long run.
Traditional marketing is still important in the digital age, but when developing a website and social media presence, organizations can cut down on traditional marketing costs. It might cost an initial start-up fee to design and deploy a professional website, but having a website makes it easier in the long run to promote and advertise.

Are you looking to build a professional website? Contact Cabedge today! With a team of experienced web developers and web designers, we can create exactly the website your business needs to get on the map.

digital marketing firm doing work

Top 7 Reasons to Hire a Digital Marketing Firm

It’s 2018, and digital marketing is more important than ever. Digital marketing is marketing taken to the digital world. Digital marketers analyze data and trends to connect with target audiences. They determine goals and develop data proven strategies to reach those goals. Digital marketing agencies can handle everything from logo and brand development to search engine optimization (SEO) and everything in between. You may think you don’t need a digital marketing agency — you can handle everything — and you can, but you don’t have to. In this data-driven, Internet-dominated world, let a digital marketing firm help you achieve your goals. Not convinced yet? We’ve got seven reasons that should help you realize everything that a digital marketing firm can offer you.

digital marketing

1. Broaden your team to help you achieve your goals.
The first thing a digital marketing team will do with a new client is determine their goals. To achieve anything, you first have to know what it is you want to achieve. A digital marketing firm knows how to extract the real goals of an organization and develop strategies to help it reach those goals. Along with developing data-driven strategies to reach your goals, a digital marketing firm is able to focus on those Internet-driven goals solely. Since it is focused on helping your achieve your online goals, it can focus on those alone and avoid being distracted by other day-to-day business tasks.

2. Outsource some work so you can focus on what you really need to do to better your business.
One of the biggest benefits to hiring a digital marketing firm to handle extraneous tasks like SEO and blog management means that you have more time to do what you really need to do to take your business to the next level. Since you’ve hired an expert to get your website up and running or hired someone to manage your SEO (or both), you can put your efforts toward making better products or providing better services to your consumers. Your attention is no longer taken from what makes your company stand out when you’ve got a team of professionals to help you with the promotion of those products/services.

3. Have a team of experts design your content.
Sure, you know what you like when it comes to design, but you’re not really sure how to make it happen online. That’s where a digital marketing team comes in. It’s important that your vision is projected in your logo, web design, and collateral design, but you don’t need to spend hours pulling your hair out looking at a web platform or learning Adobe Illustrator when you can hire someone to do it for you. Not only is it going to save you some frustration, but it’s probably going to be completed in a more timely manner because you’ve outsourced the work to someone who knows how to do it (there’s no learning curve). As long you communicate what you want things to look like, the digital marketing firm you hire can take it from there.

4. Find everything you need in one place.
Hiring a digital marketing firms means you’ve knocked a handful of jobs out with one hire. That’s right — one. All digital marketing firms are different, but at Cabedge, we can do everything from logo design to SEO to website development to hosting. We’re basically a one-stop-shop for anything digital that your company/organization might need. Digital marketing firms have a team of experts that can do it all, which saves you time and money in the long run.

5. Have someone dedicated to bettering your public image.
Not only does hiring a digital marketing firm mean that you have a team of people working on a handful of tasks, but it means you’ve got a team of people that are working to better your public image while they do them. While digital marketing isn’t public relations, it kind of does a little bit of the job a PR firm would by making sure you have good SEO, by pushing content like blog posts to engage your audience, and by ensuring you have good branding across platforms to help consumers recognize your brand. It’s all the little things you could do, but you don’t have to.

6. Improve your SEO tenfold.
One of the most important things to master in this Internet-driven world we live in today is SEO. SEO isn’t necessarily hard to learn, but it can be time-consuming to master. That’s why hiring a digital marketing firm is that much more important. Let them take over the day-to-day management of getting your website ranked higher by search engines with SEO, and managing your website information. Digital marketing firms are mostly anonymous on the Internet, and no one needs to know you’re not doing everything yourself. You’ll get more done in less time, and you’ll have experts doing it for you.

7. Add an additional perspective and new ideas to the team.
Often an overlooked benefit to hiring a digital marketing firm is getting other people on your team to provide insight. As an often unbiased third-party, digital marketing firms can provide key industry insight into website development and management. They can also serve as another vote when making decisions that concern digital marketing (like social media, branding, and website content). It’s never a bad thing to have a bigger team behind you and your decisions.

Did we convince you? If you’re looking for a digital marketing agency to help you out with branding, website development, SEO, and more, contact Cabedge. Cabedge is located in Nashville, TN, but it can help clients across the country.

man looking at google analytics

6 Statistics to Track on Your Google Analytics

You’ve set up your Google Analytics account, but now what? There are so many statistics to track, it’s hard to know where to start. What’s important for you to track is going to depend on your organization, but there are some basic statistics that are going to be important for every entity to take note of, especially when they first start. We’ve got a guide for you outlining the top six statistics you should be looking at in your Google Analytics reports.

computer with google analytics

1. New/Unique Visitors vs. Returning Visitors
Getting new visitors is just as important as having recurrent visitors. Make sure to keep track of both of those statistics. Knowing what types of visitors you are attracting (new vs. old) can clue you in to what kind of information you need to be promoting on your website to make sure you are still attracting new users, but also getting people to come back for more.

2. Traffic source/channel
Just as important as knowing what types of visitors you are attracting is knowing where you are attracting them from. This allows you to focus your efforts on the right things to gain additional visitors. Are you getting most of your visitors from Facebook? Great — you can focus more on that platform now. Or maybe you need to improve your search engine rankings through SEO to attract more search visitors. Basically, knowing where your traffic is coming from, helps you adjust your digital marketing tactics.

There are three types of traffic channels:

  • Social: A user found a link to your website on a social media channel and clicked it.
  • Direct: A user directly typed your URL into the search bar.
  • Organic: A user found your website through non-paid for methods.

3. Bounce Rate
The bounce rate in Google Analytics refers to how many users leave a page on your website without completing any actions. Ideally, you want your bounce rate to be low. You want people to stay on your website for a considerable amount of time, and you don’t want them to leave without completing an action. An action can mean filling out a form, submitting an email address, making a purchase, or a slew of other things that require the user to interact with your website

4. Page Views
Page views tells you where users are gravitating to on your site. Checking your page views helps you understand what information people are looking for and which pages are making the most impact.

5. Exit Pages
Exit pages are where the consumer is leaving in the process of conversion. Tracking this information will clue you in to understanding where you may be losing consumers in the conversion process. This can be helpful in your understanding of how to adapt your landing pages and maybe simplify your process.

6. Lead Generation Costs (Cost Per Conversion)
This is important to track when you’re doing a form of digital marketing, like Google AdWords. Your lead generation costs should be lower than your income from your website (you should make more than you are spending). Your cost per conversion should remain low while your conversion rates and value per visits should remain high. If you’re not getting the return-on-investment that you should be from lead generation, it might be time to switch tactics.

If you’re looking for help with tracking your Google Analytics statistics, contact Cabedge today. With our team of Google Analytics specialists, we can help you take your website to the next level.

two women around a computer working on website design features

Top 5 Website Features You Need to Promote Your Company

Starting a website can be intimidating — There are so many elements to incorporate and platforms you can use to launch your web presence. Where to start? Before you shell out thousands of dollars to design a custom website, start with the basics. Think about your branding, your company goals, and your mission. How are you going to translate that to a website? Check out these five basic website features that every site should have (and might be missing).

guy on a computer working on website design features

1. A beneficial menu.
Arguably one of the most important things about your website is your navigation. It’s important for people to be able to travel on your website organically (by clicking on links), therefore, you should make it as easy as possible. Your menu should be focused on helping the people who are visiting your website find the information they need. It should be straight-forward and easy to digest.

2. A well fleshed-out about me.
Skip the jargon and talk about what your company really does! It’s important for people that are coming to your page to be able to understand exactly what you do, even if it’s incredibly complicated. Try to summarize what your company offers to consumers in one or two sentences with simple language. Make sure to talk about where you’re located, how long you’ve been in business, how many people are involved in your organization and your overall goals.

3. A clear contact page.
Help people get in contact with you! This is arguably one of the most important aspects of your website because you want people to be able to get in contact with you easily for questions and business opportunities. Make sure to put your preferred form of contact information as well as all other methods of reaching out to you. Phone, email, fax, and physical location are some of the ways people can reach out, but don’t be afraid to think outside the box and include a contact form or your social media links.

4. Social media links!
Speaking of social media links… Help people that come to your website find you on other platforms! Similar to having a clear contact page, including links to your social media allows users to find you on multiple platforms. It makes it easier for people to keep up to date with your business and furthers the relationship past a simple website visit. If people follow you on social media, you are more likely to stay at the forefront of their mind, and therefore, hopefully, make more sales and connections.

5. FAQ page/search bar.
This is especially helpful if you work in a confusing industry or have a lot of competition. It will help visitors answer their questions faster, and it will make them feel more confident and comfortable working with your organization. The search bar function is only important if it actually works and benefits the user. If a search function isn’t necessary for your website, invest in creating an FAQ page. Make sure to include actual questions people may have, and don’t just rehash your about me.

Looking for help to take your website to the next level? Contact Cabedge today! Our team of website designers and content strategists can help you flesh out your design and make sure you’re catering to your consumers needs.

meeting about seo

5 Things to Avoid for Good SEO

Search Engine Optimization feels like this mystical world that needs to be uncovered layer by layer. There’s really not that much to it — create good content and utilize the tools available to you to make sure your content is seen — but still it seems like there are 40 new articles coming out each day about how to best utilize SEO. Today, we are going to talk about what you shouldn’t do. It’s easy to tell you to link-earn, utilize keywords, and share your content, but what about what you’re already doing that you should stop doing right now?

Here are five things you should stop doing in order to improve your SEO today.

seo website design

1. Duplicating content.
Sometimes website creators think the more information the more likely they are to rank for their website. Good idea, but it’s wrong. Google (and other search engines) are sophisticated — they know when information is being duplicated or when there are too many pages on a website and that reflects in the ranking. You might think it’s important to create sub-pages for all the services you provide, but if there’s very little content on those sub-pages, it might be a better idea to keep all your services on one page. Fewer pages that have more information are more likely to rank higher on Google. Additionally, you shouldn’t create ten pages with mostly the same information except for a different title (like if you offer services in different cities). Stick with creating quality content for one page and see how well it ranks.

2. Cut off spammy links. They aren’t benefiting you.
Gaining links/link-building is crucial for good SEO ranking, but having spammy links can actually hinder your chances of changing your ranking. “Spammy” links come about when you outsource your link building or your link gets added to an unprofessional directory. It’s important to find these, and remove them if possible. You can submit a disavow document that tells Google you don’t want to be associated with spammy links, which should help with your ranking.

3. Ignoring extensions and social media.
Having great content and a stellar website is important, but if you’re not utilizing everything at your fingertips, your website ranking will only go so far. For local businesses, Google My Business is essential for high rankings. Adding in all applicable information to this extension helps ensure higher rankings from Google and more clicks from searchers. Additionally, social media is a great way to help your website get ranked. More and more people are using social media search functions to find new products and places to go. Platforms like Yelp are constant resources for locals and tourists when looking for places to go in town, influencers are impacting how consumers choose to spend their hard earned cash, and sharing your content and information on social media helps people see your information more organically. Utilize everything at your fingertips, not just the traditional marketing paths, and you’re ranking are sure to soar to the top.

4. Trying to go too big.
The goal is not to go viral overnight. Viral videos/stars/publicity stunts get a huge moment in the sun, but two weeks later few people remember them. It’s important to work toward consistent growth, which often is smaller than we may hope at the beginning — but it’s consistent. This is important to remember if you’re a local business. If you’re located in Portland with no additional locations and no e-commerce site, it’s important to focus your SEO geographically rather than trying to reach all four corners of the globe. Focus on SEO growth strategically, aiming for consistent growth, and you’ll go up in the search results one by one.

5. Focusing on everything but the content.
At the end of the day, the most important thing you do for your SEO ranking is create good content. It can be frustrating to hear this advice, but it’s the truth. If you don’t have good content, no one is going to stay on your page long enough for its high ranking to matter. Create good content, focus on organic engagement, and the rest will follow.

Are you ready to take the next step with your SEO? Contact Cabedge today. With our team of experts, we will be able to come up with an individualized plan to help improve your SEO today.

social media icons on a phone

How To Use Social Media as a Business

The early 2000s were a time for social media emergence. Platforms like MySpace, Facebook, and Twitter gained prominence, while YouTube was in its early conception. Then came platforms like Instagram, Vine, Tumblr, Spotify — the list really could go on and on. People have hopped onto these platforms left and right, but brands have been a little more hesitant to join. Typically, when people think about social media, they consider it a place to connect with friends. But more and more people are looking to social media to connect with friends, family, AND brands. In an age when consumers care about brand promises and ethical standpoints, social media is the perfect place to showcase that information — Social media is where brands become more than just a name on a product or service. Whether you’ve been trying to get into the social media sphere or you’ve resisted it for years, you’ll want to hear what we have to say about why you should be on social media and how it can benefit your organization in the long run.

person taking a photo of food

Why Business/Brands Should Be On Social Media

There are a million reasons your organization should be on social media, but here are just a few that should convince you it’s the right move.

1. It’s an easy way to promote your organization and content.
Social media is one of the easiest ways to promote your organization, and it’s usually one of the cheapest, too. With 81 percent of the American population on social media, there’s no denying that it’s a good place to start improving brand reach and impact. The great thing about social media is that you control how much information you are putting out there. While it may depend upon some algorithms (we’re looking at you Instagram), organizations can typically post and promote those posts at a lower cost on social media than through traditional media.

2. You can personally engage with your audience and provide support.
In 2018, it’s important for brands to engage with their audiences. That’s where social media comes in. This can best be seen with customer service. Social media provides a direct point of contact between brands and consumers that is unlike other forms of communication. Because communications on social media can be direct between brand and consumer, it can make or break customer relations. Many consumers are turning to platforms like Twitter and Instagram to either complain or praise a company for products or services, which allows companies to respond directly either to remedy a problem or build an even stronger relationship. Social media has also proven to be instrumental in crisis communications since information can easily be shared so easily to other consumers.

3. Check up on your competition and stay information about industry trends.
Social media is the perfect place to stay informed about what is going on in your industry. Because information is constantly being updated by users, it’s easy to keep tabs on the competition and industry trends. Social media is also public, as it should be for a brand, so it’s easy to gain insights into exactly how your competition is handling certain aspects of the business like engaging with consumers, promoting sales, sharing imagery, and more.

4. Analyze your engagement and customer base.
As mentioned before, social media is pretty instantaneous. The best thing about social media/online engagement is the availability of analytics at the snap of a finger. Every second (on average) 6,000 tweets are being sent out. That’s 6,000 opportunities a second to have your brand mentioned and engaged with. In a world continuously driven by data and information, social media platforms are offering their own analytics, and information about searches, clicks, and likes can also be found through platforms like Google Analytics. When so much information is so readily available, why not take advantage of it?

social media icons

Tips and Tricks

So, now that we’ve convinced you to dip your toe in the social media pool, how are you going to use it? We urge you to think about what platform will best suite your purposes. Twitter is best used for verbal communication. It’s increasingly a space used for news gathering and engagement. Instagram is great for visual communication, meaning well crafted photos and engaging captions. It’s also a great platform to utilize for influencer partnerships. Facebook is the tried and true social media platform. Some think it’s going to die out soon, but with over 2 billion monthly active users, we don’t think Facebook is going anywhere anytime soon. There are a ton of other platforms organizations can take advantage of to connect with their consumers and promote their products/services, but Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter are the big three. Here are some little tips and tricks to make the most of your social media experience:

1. Create a brand personality.
The most important thing to remember when using social media as a business is to have a brand personality. You need to have something that makes you stand out among the saturation. Make sure all your branding is consistent across all platforms, utilize your color scheme, and decide what kind of attitude you want to portray online. Wendy’s and MoonPie have some of the strongest brand personalities on Twitter. They are kind and helpful to their followers, but they also engage in sassy sparring matches with their competition and share hilarious memes that leave consumers compelled to share with their own following. A great brand personality can help engage followers and can build a name for your organization.

2. Create a hashtag.
Creating a hashtag that is specific to your organization is going to be immensely beneficial in the long wrong when you get on platforms like Instagram or Twitter and want to be able to follow the conversations people are having about your product or services. The hashtag is just a way for you to find and follow people that are engaging with your organization.

3. Engage in chats.
Now that you’ve created a hashtag, you can engage in Twitter chats with your consumers. Twitter chats have proven to be very valuable when looking to learn about consumers wants and needs, and they can “generate lively discussions and build deep connections between participants and brands.” The only thing you need to participate is a hashtag! Typically, Twitter chats are set for a specific day and time, and they happen either weekly or monthly.

4. Reach out to people that tag you organically for partnerships.
Influencers, whether you like it or not, are becoming increasingly important in promoting products. Consumers are looking to their peers to recommend products rather than relying on traditional forms of advertising — 71 percent of consumers are more likely to purchase a product or service if it’s talked about on social media. Influencer marketing doesn’t look like it’s going away, so it’s important to be on social media platforms to reach out to the proper influencers to market your products/services.

5. Ask your audience what they want to see from you.
Since it’s so easy to engage with consumers on social media platforms, this is a great way to ask them what they want to see from your organization in the future. You can do polls on Instagram stories, ask questions in Twitter chats, or directly post and ask for feedback on recent product/service releases. Social media gives you the ability to harness the power of your consumers with far fewer marketing dollars than traditional methods.


Social media doesn’t have to be scary. But if you’re serious about getting engagement and growing sales, social media is an important step in that process. If you need help getting your social media off the ground, reach out the Cabedge. We have social media experts ready and willing to help organizations through branding, development, and message creation.

people with tablets and phones marketing

The Basics of Inbound Marketing

For new organizations, it can be daunting to try and attract new clientele. It might feel like you don’t have enough cash to really start advertising and promoting yourself, but in actuality, you don’t need a lot of money to start growing your audience and customer base. With inbound marketing, you don’t have to worry about throwing your marketing money down the drain because it requires very little investment and can be done from the comfort of your own home/office.

Inbound marketing focuses on bringing potential consumers to the final stages of the buying process by providing helpful and relevant content throughout the journey. Inbound marketing makes it easier for potential customers to find organizations through blogs, search engines, and social media. Rather than going out and finding those customers yourself through typical advertising methods, inbound marketing brings the customers to you by producing quality content that catches attention and ropes people in.

laptop coffee and notebook

How to Create Successful Inbound Marketing

The entire point of marketing is to turn random people into leads into customers into promoters. The best way to do this is to give them a reason to care about what you are putting out there. The best way to do that is with inbound marketing.

According to HubSpot, there are a couple of universal phases that one has to go through when utilizing inbound marketing to turn strangers into promoters. Let’s break those down.

  • Attract: It’s important to bring people to your site with inbound marketing that will resonate with the information you are putting out there. If your target audience member is a mom raising a hectic family, you don’t want to be attracting men who ride motorcycles together on the weekends — they most likely will not convert to customers. The best ways to attract potential customers are through blogging, showing up in relevant searches, and posting content on social media platforms. The more visible you are the better chance you have of attracting potential consumers. It also important to create consistent messaging. Any blogs or social media posts you send out to connect with potential customers should all relate back to your central brand offerings.
  • Convert: Because you are attracting potential strangers to your services/products with your inbound marketing, you are now going to have to convert them into leads. Leads are strangers that have turned into potential consumers. Once you have brought these people to your information, the path to conversion can vary. Basically, you want to make sure they continue to engage with your content past that initial hook. This can be done through newsletter forms, scheduling meetings, sending individual messages, or importing these leads into a Customer Relationship Management software system to keep tabs on for later engagement. Whatever avenue you take to convert leads into consumers is going to depend on your offering, but it’s important to keep people engaged consistently to ensure they reach that next step in the buying process.
  • Close: This may be considered the most important step — closing the deal. Now, it’s time to truly turn those leads into consumers. This is done through a variety of channels, but it’s important to open lines of communication, consistently provide good content, and creatively provide solutions to problems with what you have to offer. This can all be done through inbound marketing efforts, like producing helpful blog posts or sharing information on social media.
  • Repeat: Keep creating good content and engaging authentically with leads and consumers. The only way to ensure consumers will continually come back to your product or service is to continually provide good content and support to them. Keep it up!

Why Inbound Marketing?

You might be wondering why inbound marketing is such a big deal, and it’s because of changes in how consumers make buying decisions. The average consumer is much less likely to be swayed by traditional advertising techniques now — they want to engage with organizations that care about them and provide them with solutions. Because there is an abundance of information at our fingertips with the Internet, consumers are more likely now than ever to comparison shop and do their research before making a final purchase decision. Other factors play into making a purchase as well, such as the ethics of a company, the partnerships a company has with other organizations, and the benefits one gets from purchasing from the company — all of which can be shared through inbound marketing tactics. Consumers are increasingly looking to find answers to questions rather than sales pitches. That’s why inbound marketing, in the form of blog posts specifically, is so helpful to consumers. If you can answer questions for them, they are more likely to buy into what you are selling.

As the world has grown and more and more consumers and providers are entering the market, marketing and advertising has become more personalized. Mass marketing, like billboards and national TV ads, used to move product off the shelf, but now, organizations are leaning toward more personalized marketing, like inbound marketing, to make the sale. Consumers want to feel as if the relationship they have with an organization is personal. Inbound marketing can do that.

Everything relates when you practice inbound marketing. You create blog posts to improve SEO rankings. You share blog posts on social media to attract new consumers. And all of this is done to create leads and relationships with potential consumers. No matter your service or product, you want people to see it. To be seen, you should be practicing inbound marketing. The best thing about inbound marketing? It doesn’t have to cost insane amounts of money. As long as you focus on creating good content, you’ll be able to promote and incorporate inbound marketing without any additional cost.

If you need help creating inbound marketing collateral, reach out to Cabedge today. With our team of marketing experts and content creators, we can help get your marketing to the right people.

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Top 10 Tips for Using Google AdWords

With a multitude of marketing and development tools available to organizations now, it can be hard to know which ones are worth the time. Google AdWords is one of those tools. If your organization is looking to increase brand awareness, grow sales or generate leads, Google AdWords might be the tool for you. Unlike a lot of other tools available to organizations to help them grow, AdWords is not free, but it is adjustable depending on an organizations budget. The great thing about AdWords is that it is flexible for individual organizations based on budgets and goals. It can be hard to know where to start with a system like Google AdWords, even after taking the certification classes, so here are ten tips to help you make the most of your AdWords account.

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1. Ensure your landing page is the best possible experience for your target audience.
The best way to utilize your Google AdWords account is to ensure you have a solid landing page that keeps users engaged in what you have to offer. Your ad should be promoting what the link will send them to. For instance, if your ad is promoting a new brand of spreadable peanut butter, your Google Ad should send the consumer to a page about that new peanut butter. If it sends them to a page about peanut butter bites, it will confuse the user, and they will exit the page before finding out any additional information or making a purchase, which you don’t want. Creating an engaging, informative and accurate landing page is the first step to utilizing AdWords effectively and efficiently.

2. Use the right keyword match types.
Keywords are the terms or ideas that define your content. They are the words that users will search to find your website and information, therefore it’s very important to get them right since they are your most valuable tool when utilizing AdWords.

There are four keyword match types:

  • Broad Match: This is the default match type that doesn’t require any formatting. This will include searches that have misspellings, synonyms, related searches, and other relevant queries. It is the broadest way to get your ad seen (as reflected by the term “broad match”), so if your goal is to increase brand awareness, this is a good place to start.
  • Phrase Match — “keyword”: A phrase match means that as long as the phrase within the quotation marks shows up somewhere in the user’s search query, the ad may also appear. For example, if the keyword is “swimming pools” the search “swimming pools in Nashville” and “Nashville swimming pools” will show users the ad. But, if the user searches “I want to swim in pools in Nashville,” the ad will not appear. You have to be careful when using a phrase match because it may weed out unwanted searches, but it may also prevent desired users from finding your information.
  • Exact Match — [keyword]: An exact match setting ensures that only the most relevant search results are returned for a user. Exact match actually includes close variations as long as they don’t change the meaning of the search. For example, the keyword [men’s shoes]  can show up for the search “shoes for men” even though it’s not the specific phrase. Exact match weeds out the most unwanted search queries.
  • Negative Match — -keyword: A negative match means that that search term will not show ad results for the searcher. This is best used when you absolutely do not want a search term to bring up your ad. For example, if you’re a college bookstore, and you don’t sell USB drives, it’s important to negative match USB drives, so if someone searches for it, you don’t have to pay for a click that won’t lead to a sale.

3. Utilize negative keywords.
Now that we’ve talked about negative keywords, we can talk about how you should definitely be using them. Negative keywords are important because they ensure you aren’t paying for clicks that don’t lead to conversions. If someone is searching for something that you don’t sell, but you’re not specific enough to weed out those searches, you’ll be paying for people to click on your ad but not make any purchases themselves. The most efficient way to curb those needless clicks is to incorporate solid negative keywords.

4. Utilize every inch of space allotted to you.
Google AdWords has added plenty of real-estate to spice up ads that display alongside searches. There aren’t a lot of characters allotted for that space, but make sure to utilize each heading and descriptive area of text you can to ensure your ad appeals to your target audience. The more specific your ad, the more clicks and hopefully conversions is will lead to.

5. Use ad extensions when applicable.
AdWords has some great extensions that can spice up any ad. In addition to utilizing all the text space allotted, it’s important to use ad extensions to further make your ad stand out to users. Some of the most important extensions include the call extension and the location extension. These extensions make your ad more user friendly and might help you accomplish some of your goals. For a full list of extensions, check out Google Support.

6. Utilize geo-modifications when biding for AdWords.
This is specifically important if your organization serves or is trying to target a specific area, but if your organization serves nationally and internationally, this may not be necessary. For example, if you have brick-and-mortar shops in two locations (say one is in Nashville and one is in Los Angeles) and you don’t serve a customer base online, it’s going to be imperative that you focus your ads in those locations because people in New York can’t be patrons, and you wouldn’t want to pay for them to click on your ad without them being able to visit your shop.

7. Optimize campaigns for mobile usage.
Look around any given room and you’re likely to see people scrolling on their phones. Typically those people are searching for an answer to some inquiry, and if your ad isn’t optimized for mobile usage, you may miss out on potential patrons. The digital world is leaning towards more mobile functionality with every day, so to keep up, it’s important to utilize your ads for mobile devices.

8. Utilize remarketing features.
Remarketing features allow users to target patrons that have already visited their site. For example, if you sell clothes online, and someone visits your site, clicks on a few items, and leaves, with remarketing you can target those clients that have already shown interest in hopes that they will come back to purchase something from your site. This is particularly helpful when trying to improve repeat user visits.

9. Stand out from the crowd by promoting deals or events.
You can use callout extensions (different from call extensions) to promote special sales or events to engage your audience members. This can be an especially useful extension for short amounts of time to drive business because of a special event.

10. Start out with a low budget to test targeting and conversion rates.
Before you throw away hundreds or thousands of dollars, do a test run of your ads and see how they resonate with potential customers. It would be tragic to set a budget of $10,000 a month, just to have it wasted on unwanted clicks and a less than stellar conversion rate. Start off small and see what negative keywords or exact match keywords you may need to add to improve your conversion or click-through-rates.

Using Google AdWords can be intimidating at the start, but with these tips, you’re sure to convert users that click on your link. If you need additional help, reach out to Cabedge. Cabedge has a team of Google AdWords specialists that are ready to help you reach your goals.