Remarketing – What is it?

For most websites, only 2% of web traffic converts on the first visit. Retargeting is a tool designed to help companies reach the 98% of users who don’t convert right away.

Retargeting, also known as remarketing, is a form of online advertising that continues to display ads for your products and services to users that have previously visited your site. Retargeting is a cookie-based technology that uses simple a Javascript code to anonymously ‘follow’ your audience all over the Web.

To do retargeting, your developer places a small, unobtrusive piece of code on your website that is unnoticeable to your site visitors. Every time a new visitor comes to your site, the code drops an anonymous browser cookie on the user. Later, when your visitors browse the Web, the cookie lets your Google know when to serve ads, ensuring that your ads are served to only to people who have previously visited your website. In some cases, it actually serves up and ad for the exact product or service that they were looking at on your website before they left.

Retargeting is so effective because it focuses your advertising spend on people who are already familiar with your brand and have recently demonstrated interest. It’s also extremely valuable to incentivize users to who abandoned a previous cart without purchase.  That’s why most marketers who use it see a higher ROI than from most other digital channels.

Retargeting works best in conjunction with inbound and outbound marketing campaigns like Adwords, targeted display ads and triggered email strategies. Retargeting is so effective because it focuses your advertising spend on people who are already familiar with your brand and have recently demonstrated interest. It’s also extremely valuable to incentivize users to who abandoned a previous cart without purchase.  That’s why most marketers who use it see a higher ROI than from most other digital channels.

Google lists several ways to use Adwords campaigns to remarket:

  • Standard remarketing: Show ads to your past visitors as they browse Display Network websites and use Display Network apps.
  • Dynamic remarketing: Show dynamic ads to past visitors with products and services they viewed on your website as they browse Display Network websites and use Display Network apps.
  • Remarketing for mobile apps: Show ads to people who have used your mobile app or mobile website as they use other mobile apps or browse other mobile websites.
  • Remarketing lists for search ads: Show ads to your past visitors as they do follow-up searches for what they need on Google, after leaving your website.
  • Video remarketing: Show ads to people who have interacted with your videos or YouTube channel as they use YouTube and browse Display Network videos, websites, and apps.

For more information about how to implement a solid remarketing plan, feel free to contact Lyn Nielsen at 631.428.4653 or [email protected].

Website helps kids with cancer

Desktop Solutions is proud to announce the completion of our latest project, a website for  Happiness Is Camping, a camp dedicated to helping kids with cancer. Located in beautiful Hardwick New Jersey, the camp sits on 150 pristine acres of woodland, fields, streams, and ponds. Supported by donations and volunteer staff members, the camp is free to all who attend. Campers, ages 6-15 attend our overnight camp staying from one week or all summer depending on their medical condition and the level of care required. The camp is also available for the siblings of the campers as well. Sibling’s ages 6-15 are allowed to attend camp for the same sessions as their brother/sister with cancer.

Camp activities include canoeing and fishing on our pond, swimming in our pool, arts and
crafts, theater, nature, volleyball, basketball, high and low ropes courses, a climbing tower, archery, a giant swing, and a zip line that crosses over the pond. Happiness Is Camping has a fully-staffed health center, with volunteer doctors and nurses from Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, and Montefiore Medical Center.

As a non-profit camp, Happiness Is Camping depends on individual contributions from people who care about the kids they serve. To make a tax- deductible donation to this worthwhile organization, please click here.

 

Why Mobile Compatibility is Now a Necessity

Google recently confirmed that more users are now searching via mobile devices than on traditional desktop or laptop computers. That, combined with Google’s recent preference for sites optimized for  mobile devices, means that all businesses, even small ones, can no longer afford to ignore how their site looks on an iPhone.

Click here to see if your site meets Google’s mobile-friendly test.

If you find your site is not mobile-friendly, what should you do?

  1. Determine whether you need a respsonsive design or mobile-friendly site.

For more information on how to make sure your site is compatible with mobile devices, please visit https://developers.google.com/webmasters/mobile-sites/get-started/?hl=en

Using Video to Promote Your Site

Why Video?

Many marketers ignore video promotion as a method to surpass competitors in the search results. However, in website promotion video has several advantages:

  • Relatively low competition
  • Links to videos stand out sharply against the standard text links
  • Creating a video is not so difficult and expensive as it seems
  • People readily share links to good videos

Video Content

Video topics should be interesting. If the topic is broad, make a series of short videos.Below are several examples of video plots and titles.

  • Educational videos: “How to” type videos attract many users, especially in specific industries
  • Demonstration videos work well for sport, tourism, household appliances, or mobile devices
  • Tips on how to use complicated product or service
  • Product reviews
  • Specialists’ comments on news or events

Video Length

Size matters. The longer the video is, the less probable it is people will start watching it and watch it to the end. That is why it is advisable to make videos no longer than 3-5 minutes.

What’s in a Name?

Another important factor is a video title. When writing a title, try to choose two or three keywords which your video potential viewers might type and then append the “video” word to it. You can use Google Keyword Tool for this purpose. Make sure to test your video potential title — put it in quotes and search for such keyword on Google. For example, “how to choose the right tires”. Use only unique titles for your video; unique title is more important than the title stuffed with right keywords. Limit the title length to 55- 60 characters – in this case the user will be able to see it in full in the search results, which in turn will increase Click Through Rates.

Search Engine Optimization

Apart from keywords research for the search engines, you can also use special tags containing important queries. This will help search engines understand what your video is about and rank it higher than similar videos of your competitors without tags. YouTube allows publishing text subtitles to the video, and here you can freely incorporate keywords along with company name. During its ranking process Google prefers pages with large chunks of useful and unique content.

Where to Upload?
Should you upload a video to your own website or opt for popular video hosting services such as YouTube or Vimeo?

There is no definite answer to this question. However, using video hosting services has some advantages. Firstly, cost saving. If you have a lot of videos you may need very expensive hosting resources. Secondly, if you experiment with several search queries, it becomes obvious that “common” websites share is extremely small in comparison with YouTube. There is explanation for it: YouTube service belongs to Google, besides, it has what optimization specialists call “trust”. That is why even in the beginning YouTube video has some advantages. If you do decide to host your video on Youtube, Vimeo, or a similar site — make sure your web developer does not send people off-site to see the video. You should also consider that people may discover your company first by searching through the videos in Youtube. In this case you should simultaneously interact with the audience by gently offering your services and inviting them to your website.

How to attract users to your website
If the your company was originally discovered through a video hosting service, how to make the user who has watched the video to click through to your website? If possible, mention your company name at the beginning and at the end of the video. If not, show your logo. The best option is to have your site name and/or address displayed during the whole video. It is important, however, not to overload video with logos and links, as it will distract the viewer and make the video too pushy and promotional.

Some large video hosting services, such as YouTube and Vimeo, allow embedding your site link into the video description. If on top of that you have your own video channel on these websites, make sure it contains your brand name.