At Ace Digital Marketing we reckon our website is pretty fancy looking - and it works great too. So what platform is it built on?

This site is actually built using Weebly. Although Wordpress is just about the most popular option out there for DIY website builds, Weebly is nice and easy to use and can yield some great visual and functional results.

Is it the best way in the world to build a website? No. However, it is easy-to-use and can yield attractive websites at an affordable cost. 

We're taking a break from our regularly scheduled informative blog content to remind you that no matter what you're hoping to achieve with online marketing, you can always get a free quote and further discussion from Ace Digital Marketing.

Whether you're looking to make a "first foray" online for your business, or you've been working with other providers and are looking for a change, Ace Digital Marketing can help you achieve your goals.

Our focus is always on generating more revenue for your business through an enhanced online presence. Rankings, clicks, and bounce rates are useful metrics - but they always need to play second-fiddle to what really counts!

Find out just how effective our services can be with a free quote from Ace Digital Marketing. 

One of the most important things you can do when it comes to running an SEO campaign is keep a close eye on your website's performance in the organic search rankings of Google and other search engines (known as SERPs).

A novice mistake that is made by many people is to simply load up their browser and type in their keyword, such as "Christchurch SEO", and then click through the results until you find your site.

This simply isn't the right way of doing things. Remember that Google applies some fairly heavy personalisation to search results. It's also far too time-consuming.

Instead, what you need to do is use a proper SERP tracking tool. There are so many options available when it comes to SERP checkers, so you are literally spoiled for choice.

However, at Ace Digital Marketing we are big fans of a platform called SERPLab. It's an online-only tracker that is super easy to use, and very affordable for professional use.

For one-off spot checks, we are also partial to using Whatsmyserp.com - it's got an ugly interface, but it is very easy to use.

In the course of my day-to-day work, I come across a lot of business owners who have paid for SEO services that have turned out to be less-than-stellar. In fact, I've probably lost count of the number of people who have been burned by SEO.

In many of these cases, the business owner in question was suckered in by claims of "guaranteed first page rankings".

It is this often-abused phrase that is the subject of today's short blog post. Basically, as soon as you hear a potential SEO provider say words to the effect of "we can guarantee you first page rankings", then you need to run for the hills!

No honest or ethical SEO/web marketing firm will ever promise first page rankings when it comes to working on your site. This false promise is strictly the domain of 2nd rate service providers who are into the business of selling "snake oil".

When it comes to getting guaranteed rankings, there really are only two options:

1) Run a Google Adwords campaign with specific focus on bidding up to a high position.
2) Look into "rank and rent" SEO options, where you actually rent (or pay per inbound lead) a pre-existing site that may be ranking with SEO techniques that are generally too aggressive for a branded website. 

This isn't to say that SEO isn't a great way to get your site on the first page of Google for those "mission critical" keywords. With the right mindset and willingness to invest to see results, you can achieve some spectacular gains for your website.

However, it IS important to understand that there are no real guarantees in SEO; Google can come along and upend their algorithm at any stage, and you have little or no control over what your competitors are doing either. 

So next time you are looking to partner with an SEO agency and you hear them say something like "rankings guaranteed", jump on your bike and ride far away!

​By Sam Frost

A question we commonly get from prospective clients is whether Google Adwords can actually work for businesses with tight marketing budgets.

If you take a look around on popular Adwords & PPC blogs and sites, you'll often see people talking about spending 4 figures plus per month on Adwords.

Now for a medium to larger business, this figure might not be too much of a bother. But for smaller businesses - who have just as much right as the big players to get their products and services in front of potential customers - the thought of spending upwards of $1000 per month on Adwords can be rather daunting. Even spending $500 could be a real ask.

So does this mean you need to abandon forever the idea of advertising on Google Adwords? After all, many larger agencies won't touch clients looking to spend less than 4 figures with a barge-pole. 

The truth is that provided your business can spare at least $10 per day for advertising, then you can make a start with Google Adwords. Sure, you might not open the floodgates to masses of new traffic (and testing the performance of your campaign will take longer). But you can do it - and making a start is often the most important thing.

So if you run a small business with a tight marketing budget, then don't despair at the thought of missing out on Adwords advertising. By starting a highly-targeted "surgical" campaign, you can maximize the value of a limited budget.

If you start to see positive results that mean more customers (and if your Adwords campaign has been created by pros like us, then you will do) then you can potentially look at starting to scale up your efforts. That $10 a day might become $20, and then in 6 months' time it might become $30 - the huge advantage of Adwords is its relative scalability. 

Long story short: Adwords can definitely work for small businesses with limited budgets. In fact, here at Ace Digital Marketing we pride ourselves on creating the best Adwords campaigns possible for just about any budget. Contact the team today to find out more.

By Sam Frost

Looking to partner with a dynamic, cutting-edge team for your next web marketing project? You'll love working with Ace Digital Marketing!

Here's a handy guide to the services that Ace Digital Marketing offers:

• Digital strategy development - Never go into battle without a solid plan! Digital strategy development is all about coming up with the right tactics to help your business get ahead online.
• Google Adwords & PPC - Drive targeted traffic, leads and customers for your business with Google's legendary pay-per-click advertising platform. We also offer Bing advertising services. 
• Facebook advertising - No matter what product or service you sell, there's a good chance that you can find the right audience to market it to on Facebook. Partner with Ace Digital Marketing to get your brand in front of the right people on the 'Book. 
• Social media management - Social media is an important marketing channel ... but it can also be time consuming, especially for busy business owners. Let us take care of your social media needs, freeing you up to do other things. 
• Search engine optimisation - Using proven and effective strategies and methods, we get your website ranking better in Google and other search engines for keywords that are relevant to your business. 
• Email marketing - One of the most effective web marketing channels, email marketing gives you the power to get your brand into the inboxes of potential and existing customers. We can help you develop an effective email marketing strategy, as well as maintain email databases and send campaigns on your behalf.

Recently I have been helping a client set up "lookalike audiences" on Facebook for their site visitors. This is a great way of taking a snapshot of your average visitor profile, and then letting Facebook's slightly creepy data gathering be applied to help you target a highly relevant audience.

In order to map your website visitor data to Facebook's targeting methods, you have to install a tracking pixel. This is a little snippet of code that sits in your website <head> tag, and does the data gathering on your behalf. It's a 2 minute job to find and install this code on most CMS.

To ensure that you've got the code properly configured, Facebook also helps you out by providing a Chrome browser extension called "Facebook Pixel Helper". The purpose of this extension is to allow you to load any site that is supposed to have a tracking pixel firing, and then check if it is actually installed and working properly.

I used the Pixel Helper on this client's site after installing the pixel, and got a message informing me that the pixel could not load. No amount of checking and re-checking could turn up any error with the implementation of the pixel ...

... so what was the issue? Well, it turns out that I had Ublock Origin (an ad blocker) running on my browser. Lo and behold, if I turned on the debug on Ublock, there was a line informing me that Facebook's pixel had been blocked. Pausing Ublock and refreshing the page, then checking the Pixel Helper again informed me that all was working as intended!

So if you're getting an error on Facebook Pixel Helper saying that the pixel will not load, check to make sure you aren't using an ad blocking extension.

​Sam Frost

I just can't resist using "weird trick" headlines ... there's something so infuriatingly captivating about those stupid ads.

Anyway, I digress. Here is a genuinely useful way to get some more likes to your business Facebook page at no extra cost.

When you make a post of any type to your business page, it will receive likes from your existing audience (provided you've got enough likes on your page and engagement to actually get some reach).

It's also normal that you'll pick up likes on your posts from people who don't actually like your page. These people will have seen your post in their timeline because a friend liked it, or they found it on someone's profile, or Facebook's algorithm decided they should see that post.

And you can capitalise on these "post likers" to get them to like your page!

Click on the line under your post that says something like "John Doe & 100 others liked this".  A box will appear on your screen with the photos & names of everyone who liked the post on your page. Next to each name should be a little box that says "liked", "invited" or "invite" depending on the person's status.

Click "invite" where applicable and a notification will be sent to that person asking them to like your page. Not everybody will say yes ... but for something that takes 5 minutes work a day you'll find that this strategy can yield a decent number of extra likes to your page for no additional cost. 

There is a limit to how many times you can do this every 24 hours. It seems like Facebook limits you to inviting around 200 people per day to like your page. Most smaller businesses aren't going to hit this limit, so don't worry about it too much. But if you're dealing with posts that have a lot of likes, then this is something to bear in mind. 

If you want to get more Facebook page likes, also check out the following video:

One of the biggest issues facing business owners who operate a Facebook page for their company is Facebook's strict throttling of organic reach (especially if you try to post anything even remotely professional).

At Ace Digital Marketing, we manage a number of Facebook pages both for clients and for our own interests. Understanding and increasing reach is something we are always striving to learn more about.

One of our own Facebook pages has a rapidly growing audience of 26,500 fans. The posts made on this page consistently reach over 100,000 people per week. But nonetheless, it has a nasty problem with engagement on promotional content. 

For example, a standard non-promotional post - especially one that is focused around humour or personal interest - will pick up anywhere from 1.5-2.5k likes on, and at least several hundred shares and comments, within 24 hours of posting. As you would expect, this amount is slowly growing as more people like the page in question.

However, if a post is added that links to a promotional page, such as a link to buy a product, then the reach is significantly throttled. It might only reach 10% of the audience that a normal, non-promotional post would ... at least without paying for ads.

And this experience is similar to that of many other business owners and Internet marketers, looking to make a splash on Facebook.

Basically, Facebook wants you to pay to get your offer in front of your fans and audience. 

So what tips can you, the humble business owner, use to increase engagement for your Facebook page? Without having to spend more money on Facebook ads.

1. Post frequently. We believe that most businesses should be trying to post once per day on Facebook. Whether it's a daily special update, or a link to a news article featuring your business, or a photo of some cool new office artwork, regular posts will help in getting your engagement up and attracting a new audience. The easiest way to do this is generally through scheduling content. 20 minutes spent on a Sunday night could easily yield you a week's worth a scheduled content. Ace Digital Marketing recommends a nifty program called FPTraffic if you'd like to schedule your own posts. 
2. Minimize overt promotion. Look at other strategies to funnel customers from Facebook onto your offer page. This is especially important if you're trying to promote products but don't have much in the way of budget for advertising on Facebook. For example, let's say you run a business selling ethically-sourced clothing. Instead of posting a hard sell promotional image of your clothing that links back to your eCommerce store, consider posting a link to a blog post or article that explains what makes your brand's clothing unique. 
3. Use video where possible. Videos seem to attract better engagement from Facebook's audience. Most smartphones take perfectly acceptable quality video for everyday use ... so think of some interesting ways to use video to boost up your business. Videos also tend to get great results when being boosted via Facebook ads. Just remember to ensure that your video makes sense with no audio (most Facebook users keep videos muted).
4. Make the most of human-centric posts. It's called Facebook for a reason. Faces - the most important aspect of human interaction - tend to elicit higher engagement. Anything that is about people doing interesting things will generally perform better than a heavily promotional text-based image. For example, if you run a retail store and currently have a promotion, then a photo of a shop assistant interacting with a customer (with promotional content in the post text area) will probably perform better than a graphics-based image that says "Sale On Now". Why? Because of the human element. 
5. Ask for engagement (but be careful). Facebook are a bit iffy about this, but it does work in some circumstances. Asking your existing audience to like, comment, or share actually goes against what Facebook deem to be best practice. However, it can also be very effective at boosting up engagement on some content. Not every post should have accompanying text that says "how many likes for X" or "like, comment & share". But occasionally using a cleverly-worded statement like "Who here loves product A?" or "tag a friend who needs this in their home" can help boost up engagement. 

If you want to make the most of social media for your business, then Ace Digital Marketing can help. Contact us today for a review of your social strategy and promotion techniques - and let us put together a social media plan that will bring new leads and customers through your door. 

​By Sam Frost