Hello, this is Monica Thomas, the Search Marketing/SEO manager for medresponsive.com.

This week’s podcast will discuss effective ways to make your Google shopping campaigns profitable.

Since their launch in 2010, Google shopping Ads has steadily become a powerful tool for any E-commerce business selling products online. When compared to traditional PPC Google text Ads, these ads have consistently evolved and proven to be more effective. In fact, the 2019 Google shopping benchmarks report found that Google shopping ads grew 29 percent YoY versus only 13 percent of paid search. This demand is driven by an increase in ad spend by retail marketers and Ecommerce businesses.

What Makes Google Shopping Different?

Google Shopping is the closest thing to window shopping on the internet. It is a Pay-Per-Click advertising opportunity that is profitable for sellers as it is for the shoppers themselves. This shopping platform consists of product listing ads that appear at the top center or top right of a Google search results page when someone searches for a product. Through this medium, buyers can easily compare product details as they search and sellers also can promote their products and benefits. Potential buyers can view the make, model and price of a specific product before they even click through. If they do not like the product or think it is too expensive, they can quickly move on to the next “shop window.” The result is – qualified traffic that is more likely to convert.

Google Shopping ads are very effective in showcasing products and attracting high-quality prospects by appearing on the general search results, the images tab, and the shopping tab.

How Do You Run Google Shopping Ads?

 In order to run Google Shopping Ads, you need to have two accounts (working together) – Google AdWords and Google Merchant Center. Google Merchant Center includes your data feed – which is a collection of information about your product inventory including title, description, price, image and other required information.

Google uses your data feed to develop product ads and uses the same to identify when to showcase these ads. Google Merchant Center also helps you create rules related to shipping, sales tax and selecting your target country. Google AdWords, on the other hand, is where the actual shopping campaigns become live. This involves creating daily budgets, bids, ad groups and product groups.

Google shopping management and optimization have many similarities to good SEO. When compared to traditional text ads, it is not possible to explicitly specify what type of keywords you want your product listing ads to show for. Instead, Google crawls your data feed and find out what queries or keywords your product listing ads are relevant to. So it is essential to furnish Google with good data that can used to determine relevancy.

Here are some ways that help improve the overall success of your Google Shopping Campaigns –

• Optimize your Product Data – Optimizing your product feed helps improve your rankings in both organic and paid search results.
• Product Title – An important attribute that will impact your ranking, the product title should include the relevant keyword(s), be descriptive, and reflect the language that consumers use in their searches. The key is to be as descriptive as possible while keeping it simple and direct at the same time.
• Product Descriptions – Descriptions of the product should be information-rich and include relevant SEO keywords with the correct product attributes. Place the key terms within the first 150 characters for capturing the full attention of prospective buyers.
• Ad Link – This is the landing page – product page URL – to which the ad will redirect users. Make sure it contains accurate information.
• Product Image – Use top quality product images and remove overlays such as logos or watermarks, which could cause Google to reject your ad. In addition, include as much product data as possible, such as price, category, availability, unique identifier, condition, and gender/age/color/size.
• Fine-tune your Bids – Once, your ad is live for a few weeks, you will have gathered enough data to adjust the ad’s bidding strategy and modify your campaigns. Use tools like “Google Ads Filters” to set up custom product segments. You can set up automated rules that optimize for things like more clicks, greater conversions or a target return on an ad. Once filters are created, you can adjust the maximum CPC bid more efficiently at a granular level. Bid modifiers can also be set for specific segments (such as, based on device or location).Also, make sure to use negative keywords so that you don’t pay for search terms that get clicks but don’t convert.
• Create Showcase Shopping Ads – Showcase shopping ads are a great option for introducing your brand to consumers and help them decide which merchant to choose for purchase. More visually focused, this can be a great way to catch the eye of a potential buyer. Appearing at the top of broad, non-branded searches, this feature allows creating ads that include a collection of related products and involve broader search terms – without specifying the product size, color, or brand. It is possible to control the specific products shown in your ads and track conversion in real time.
• Create Google Shopping Actions – This ad platform provides a faster and simpler way for consumers to purchase products. Instead of driving users to your website, Shopping Actions enables purchasing directly from Google.
• Participate in Google Shopping programs – To increase the effectiveness of ads, Google offers special programs for advertisers. These programs help attract the attention of shoppers in order to drive high-quality traffic thereby increasing the ROI. Some of these shopping programs include product ratings, merchant promotions and friction less shopping actions.
• Separate Device Targeting – As more people now use Smartphones for shopping, it is more likely that a majority of the budget will be allocated to mobile. This could cause the campaign budget to end early and you could lose out on sales not only from mobile users but also from people who use other devices such as desktop and tablets for shopping. The shopping behaviors of people vary based on the devices they use. Create separate campaigns targeting each specific type of device. Set an individual budget, content, and bidding strategy for each campaign based on shopping preferences, and behaviors (specific to each device) in order to maximize ROI.
• Focus on Audience-based Remarketing (RLSA) Ads – Reports suggest that RLSA is estimated to reduce the average cost-per-acquisition by 53 percent and increase conversion rates by 10 percent. RLSA ads allow you to allocate more of your ad spend on audiences that have shown interest in your brand or products earlier. Remarketing helps you reach shoppers who have already visited your website. You can promote products they have shown interest in so they return and make a purchase. Setting up remarketing ads is quite simple. Simply create audiences in Google Analytics, target your ads, and set your bid modifiers to allocate more funds to these specific segments. Focus on more general segments, such as all visitors, abandon cart, and abandon checkout.

Google Shopping campaigns reach targeted groups of customers with high purchase intent. Google is constantly adding new innovative features to help advertisers yield better results.

Researching and understanding how to setup your Google Shopping Campaigns can often be tricky and time-consuming. The SEO, Web Design, IT and Search Marketing team here at MedResponsive can help you with any of your SEO, Google advertising, web design or internet marketing needs.

Please contact us via phone or email with any questions.

Have a great day or evening! Thank you for listening!

Hello,

This is Monica Thomas, the Search Marketing/SEO manager for medresponsive.com.

This week’s podcast will cover Tips to Optimize Your Medical Practice Location Pages.

Search engines have become an important element of the online experience for millions of users. Hospitals and medical businesses using digital marketing in healthcare can attract more healthcare consumers.

It is a fact that an increasing number of people use the internet to get health-related information. 93% of online activity begins with a search and avoiding search engine optimization could quickly place you in a disadvantageous position and even compromise your organizational goals.

Medical businesses that integrate location pages into their marketing strategies can efficiently keep up in today’s competitive world.

For multi-location medical practices or healthcare businesses, location pages are a fundamental component of a local SEO strategy. These pages help local patients find the information they need to contact you. To make sure your location pages are up to the task, you need to optimize your location pages with the following things:

• NAP, basic information: NAP refers to name, address and phone number of your medical practice or healthcare business and your NAP should match with your location page, Google My Business profile and other citations.
• Ensure consistent local business listings: Make sure that you appear correctly on all digital services such as Google Maps, Apple Maps, and Facebook because these constitute a much larger portion of mobile searches than classic searches. Any kind of inconsistency could prove detrimental to your business and make potential consumers hesitant to visit your facility or use your service. Now, Google warns users who are proceeding to locations it believes are closed.
• Business location description: Providing a description of your medical practice or healthcare business is important but many people fail to do so. They may simply use the same description on all location pages and just replace the location name. You cannot use the same content and just swap the city name. Make sure that each location page is unique. The following are some tips to make your description look unique.
• Mention the special services offered at this location and not in any other locations.
• You can link internally with any other nearby location, if you have any.
• Write about what makes your medical practice or healthcare business unique when compared to your competitors.
• Photos: Photos are a must for location pages but many businesses often tend to ignore this. You must have both interior and exterior photos.
• Interior photos: Posting interior photos helps visitors to have a clear idea about your medical practice and speed up decision making.
• Exteriors photos: Posting photos of your exterior helps new visitors to find your medical practice easily. It should include logos and signage, parking and nearby businesses.

The photos should be of high quality and if you are taking the photos with a modern camera then it tends to have unnecessary excessive metadata within the photo. Software such as ImageOptim can remove that meta data with lossless compression, meaning that the image quality isn’t compromised and software like ImageExifEditor can add meta data to images such as title, description, and even GPS coordinates. This may be useful for ranking.

• CTA (call- to- action): Call to action or CTA is one of the most important elements in digital marketing but many medical practices often overlook this in many location pages. Adding CTA to your location page adds value to your user experience. Some examples of CTA are Get Directions, Book appointment etc.
• Clear directions to your healthcare business: Providing clear directions to your medical practice helps your patients reach you easily. It also helps in geo specific keyword targeting. Make sure to mention how to get to your location from at least two directions (East/West or North/South) from major highways. List out all the major intersections and nearby businesses in your direction so that your patients can find your medical practice easily.
• Make good use of schema mark-up: When schema mark-up or code is added to your website, it is easier for search engines to categorize and identify important information. It also generates optimized rich snippets and improves your overall search engine ranking. Potential patients will even be shown extra information such as business hours, location details, and testimonials, in the search results before your link is clicked.
• Incorporate reviews: Positive reviews are vital to business success. The quantity of reviews, their frequency and diversity are taken into consideration by Google when ranking your website. You can get reviews by offering patients a variety of places online where they can leave their review. Also, consider giving printed collateral to patients when they visit you, listing where they can review you or your healthcare business. Make sure to link your review profiles from your website. Vitals.com, Healthgrades.com, and RateMDs.com are popular practitioner review websites.
• Include a map: Including a map is very helpful. You can also try to use the Google Maps API to develop a custom map solution to include your other nearby locations.
• Internal linking: There are many ways to add relevant internal linking for your local landing pages. Following are some of the ideas that you can use:
• Link to other nearby locations
• Link to doctor profile
• Link to location-specific social media profiles
• Link to your medical practice about page
• Have a space for recently published blogs
• If your location offers specific services, link to informational pages about those services.
• Title and meta description: A well-optimized meta description and title are important for SEO. Always make sure that your listing is optimized wherever a user finds your medical practice. A well-optimized title should include three main elements — Brand name, Geo-specific keyword (city or local area) and keyword. Meta descriptions do not directly affect SEO ranking but it plays a significant role in SERPs. So, include the same three elements from the title while adding some extra selling flare.
• Quick load speed: Load speed is an important ranking factor, especially for local SEO. A fast loading location page can make the difference between your site ranking in position two and position one in the map pack. With the help of Google PageSpeed Insights of GTMetrix you can diagnose issues with the load speed of your webpages.

The importance of a location page is that it helps search engines, such as Google, to find your healthcare business or medical practice and your business has the potential to be displayed on the first page of the SERP if users search by their location.

Researching and understanding how to setup your Google and other internet location pages can often be tricky and time-consuming. The SEO, Web Design, IT and Search Marketing team here at MedResponsive can help you with any of your SEO, Google advertising, web design or internet marketing needs. Please contact us via phone or email with any questions.

Have a great day or evening!

Thank you for listening!