You manage your own business, and every day, you hear more and more about using SEO to optimize your website and make it perform even better on the Web. In this blog, we examine the most important free tools available on the market, so that you can optimize your SEO activities (Search Engine Optimization).

Located in the heart of Laval, and with clients in Montreal, as well as throughout Canada and internationally, Amauta Marketing gives you the tools to improve your visibility and marketing strategies.

  1. Google Analytics

Google Analytics (GA) is a critical tool for businesses that collects data about the way users interact with your website and displays easy-to-read reports with visual graphics to measure your performance.

These reports include the number of visits to your site, where visitors are based or coming from, at what times they are visiting more often, which pages, etc. This platform also enables you to track activities on social networks and offers advice on how to improve your performance.

  1. Yoast SEO

Yoast SEO is an optimization tool used by nearly 15 million websites and gives you ways to maximize your SEO with WordPress (WP). It helps you optimize your website pages or blogs using keywords and suggests ways to adapt your content in order to make it more visible on search engines.

  1. Google Ads

With Google Ads, you can search for keywords and gain insight into how your audience searches the Web. Over the years, Google’s algorithms have evolved to the point where you now need to keep up with them to produce ever more effective content that draws in traffic.

Now, in 2022, these algorithms are being redesigned to give digital writers an even larger pool of keywords to choose from, as well as the ability to use them in their content. Google Ads not only makes it easier to identify the right keywords, it also presents you with statistics about how effective each of these words are or suggests some really powerful keywords to follow.

  1. Google Search Console (GSC)

The GSC search console provides an overview of what the major search engines think about your website. For most experts in the field, Google Search Console is regarded as one of the most powerful tools on the market. It offers solutions to improve your site’s appearance, site map and much more…

  1. Similarweb

By using Similarweb, you can monitor your competitors’ performance based on the amount of traffic they generate on the Web. It focuses in on the main sources of traffic to your direct competitors and displays the most frequently used keywords. It also allows you to correct your game plan in order to become more successful on all search engines.

Now let’s review the five tools discussed in this blog using the following chart.

Overall, these five tools help you enhance the performance of your website and suggest content strategies to improve your overall SEO. Obviously, there are other effective tools on the market which can also help make your site much more competitive and we’ve got a handle on all of them.

Amauta Marketing Is the Right Expert for Your Business Needs!

Whether you’ re launching a new business or have been operating your enterprise for several years now, Amauta Marketing, located in the heart of Laval, has the right tools to take you to the next level.

With its team of experts, effective strategies and innovative solutions, Amauta Marketing can boost your business activities on the Web.

Over the years, the team at Amauta Marketing has been specializing in Web marketing and helping clients make their websites much more accessible. Put your trust in a talented team, choose Amauta Marketing today!

 

It doesn’t always seem easy to distinguish between B2B and B2C businesses if you don’t work in the field of digital marketing and, more specifically, if your business activities are largely conducted on search engines in Canada.

Amauta Marketing in Laval, with clients from all over Quebec, Canada and abroad, knows the Google market thoroughly and has specialized in digital marketing for many years.

It distinguishes for us between B2B and B2C to better understand these abbreviations, but also to establish strategies that will increase your market share on search engines.

B2B and B2C in Digital Marketing

Digital marketing experts who have both types of businesses as clients will tell you that understanding the differences between B2B and B2C is important, if not fundamental, to developing winning digital strategies for their clients.

The term B2B, widely used in marketing agency jargon, refers to the business-to-business relationship. Simply put, the B to B refers to all the means used to connect companies in order to facilitate exchanges, whether it be products, services or information between them. We can cite the case of a content agency that markets a professional services offer with a large communications company by proposing its internal and external communications review services. This company will therefore contract with another company.

As for the abbreviation B2C (business to consumer), it refers to the relationship between companies and consumers. It refers more to products and goods intended for the general public. B to C experts use marketing techniques that are aimed at the general public in the context of a purely commercial activity. One can think here of a car dealer who sells new and used cars to individuals.

In short, most of the time, B2B marketing focuses on process-oriented purchasing decisions, while B2C marketing focuses on emotion-oriented decisions to satisfy consumer needs.

Digital Marketing and Customer Relationships

From these few distinctions, B2B in the age of digital communications is about the ability for companies to generate leads by building more personal relationships that typically drive long-term business. You build your brand by standing out from your competitors and establishing personal relationships that will keep you in the buying cycle.

B2C, on the other hand, is more about driving consumers (general public) to products or services on your client’s SME or large company website in order to drive sales. Often, the strategy used will be that of Google advertising, highlighting products that are intended for the general public. Not surprisingly, B2C companies clearly value efficiency and focus on the transactional.

In brief, B2B companies work in a more specialized market, often called niche. In contrast, B2C companies focus on a larger market and on a larger scale. This is why they seek to develop transactional relationships that will yield results.

Amauta Marketing, a Digital Strategist of Choice!

At the heart of digital strategies, Amauta Marketing in Laval is a leader in digital marketing and closely follows the global trends of the web market. With its team of specialists, Amauta Marketing overlooks nothing.

Although the company makes a distinction between B2B and B2C in the era of digital communications, it is well aware that more and more professionals and individuals are looking for a real proximity with companies before placing their trust in them and doing business.

In this respect, it dominates the Google market and that of other search engines in Canada, because it knows that a company, before specializing in B to B or B to C, is first and foremost a person-to-person entity that must be known and understood. The best strategies come from knowing the company and its audience. Amauta Marketing knows how to do things in the right order.

Entrust your digital strategies to specialists who understand you, entrust your next campaign to Amauta Marketing, good on all counts!

Who you choose to be your Google Ads web agency is an important decision. Choose well and you’ll benefit from a growing business but choose poorly and you’ll end up wasting money and losing business opportunities.

Google Ads can be confusing, and some web agencies like to keep their clients in the dark. They hide behind technical lingo and web industry speak to justify exorbitant fees for little gain. Beware of those who waive setup or management fees just to hook you up. Make sure that they put the effort needed into setting up and managing your account from the start. Advertising is expensive, so you’ll need a sound strategy and a comprehensive set-up to ensure your account is tightly controlled to avoid wasted clicks. Investing in a quality set-up and management at the start can save you thousands of dollars in the long run. Here are some useful clues to know if your account is well managed or not.

Your Account. Make sure that the Google Ads account belongs to you and not your web agency. You should have access to your account at all times. Do not buy into the concept of monthly report in which you will be assured that it tells you everything you need to know. It’s a lie. Sometimes, those reports provide no cost information and focus on the number of clicks received but not what those clicks cost. Often, the majority of clicks are put to Display Advertising because it costs a lot less than Search Advertising where you should be putting the bulk of your spending so that you can get your company’s name in front of people searching for your products and/or services. Make sure your account is paid with your credit card. This way you’ll know how much money is invested in your advertising.

Search Terms. Your web agency should be putting the bulk of your advertising spending on top performing keywords that are highly valuable to your business by applying the 80-20 rule which is to assume that 80% of all traffic to your website will come from just 20% of your keywords. These are the keywords that are more likely to convert. You want to ensure that you often show for these keywords. This way, you won’t miss business opportunities.

Top Position. If you’re not seeing your ads until page two or even three of Google, you’re missing out on valuable business opportunities. You want to ensure your ads are showing in the top three positions. Ideally, in the second position which cost less money than first. The fewer competitors potential clients have to crawl through before they come across your company, the better!

Wasted Clicks. If you get calls that have nothing to do with your business, it’s because your web agency is being lazy and only bids on broad terms, irrelevant search terms or is not adding negative keywords. It results in wasted clicks that chew through your advertising budget.

Change History. There is a quick and easy way to find out how much work your web agency is putting into your account. It’s a feature called ‘Change History’ which tells you how many changes occurred in your account month by month or in other words, how much work is being done each month. Since you are paying a monthly fee, you should be seeing changes made to keywords, ads and extensions, bids and budgets, not just bids.

Account Management. No automation program can understand the competitive landscape and intricacies of your industry as well as an actual person who has experience and can formulate a strategy or game plan to differentiate you from your competitors. There is no substitute for hard work.

Traffic. Understand that focusing on bringing more traffic to your website doesn’t equate to bringing more business. Some web agencies will get you more traffic and they will deliver on their promise. But they won’t deliver on your expectations. Because what you really want is more leads and revenue. Not more traffic. And more traffic doesn’t naturally lead to more leads. It has to be relevant and qualified traffic to lead to more leads. More often than not, the money they are spending on Google Ads is wasted on irrelevant, invalid clicks that chewed through your advertising budget with very little to show for.

Quarterly meeting. It’s critical that you meet with your web agency on a regular basis to be presented campaign results, being able to add input, and change strategy if needed.

In a nutshell, Google Advertising can be an excellent source of leads, but only if your account is properly handled. Otherwise, you’ll waste a lot of money and end up with nothing. Don’t wait another month to call us for a free confidential audit if you think your account isn’t being properly handled. Because each month is another month of squandered funds and missed business opportunities.

Amauta Marketing

 

As of June 1st, 2019, Google will collect and return sales taxes (QST) to Revenu Québec. Google is now treated like any international digital companies such as Apple, Amazon, Netflix, and Spotify, and others who sell intangible products and services.

For healthier competition

The announced objective by Mr. Legault’s Government is to provide a more equitable commercial framework to local companies who have never benefited from this dispensation while making their prices more expensive for consumers with the QST. It is also a way to recoup more than $150 million dollars until 2022-2023, as explained by the Quebec Government in 2018. Revenu Québec supplies a list of the 76 companies subject to these new rules. However, the Federal Government is not following in the footsteps of the Quebec Government and still does not impose tax payment of 5% (GST) on the web giants’ products and services.

Your invoice should be modified as of this Saturday

Either using Netflix video services, buying online products on Amazon, or using Google Ads services to analyse your clientele or managing your online ad campaigns, you will see your invoice modified to showcase the addition of the QST as of this Saturday.

If you have any question related to this, do not hesitate to call us up. As always, we will be listening and will try to make you life easier.

In February 2019, Google owned 92.81% of the Canadian search engine market share. A number that cannot be ignored when one is concerned about optimization. In North America, Google completely dominates its three main competitors: Bing (4.17%), Yahoo (2.07%) and DuckDuckGo (0.66%).

 

A quick ascent

At the end of 2018, Google celebrated its 20th anniversary. Since its launch, the company has grown almost exponentially. “When Larry Page and Sergey Brin founded Google on September 7, 1998, they had four computers, their ingenuity and $100,000 […] Then years later, the giant had 20,000 employees and a market value of $150 billion US dollars”, as per TVA Nouvelles in 2008. Another 10 years has passed, and the number of employees is now more than 72,000. The market value of this Mountain View, California company now reaches $570 billion US with $19.5 billion US in profits. That makes it difficult for the competition to keep the pace. If one surveys multilanguage search engines in the world, there are about ten and only four to be taken seriously: Yahoo and Bing, the two most important, have formed a partnership. In Canada, search engine options also include DuckDuckGo, MSN, and Baidu, all of which are far behind in market share.

 

The keys to success

What do you attribute to Google’s success as a search engine? Mainly because of the research and development investment by Google to better understand Internet users and their search habits. From personalized search to semantic analysis of query with a ranking system, Google is undeniably the leader. By adopting a culture of continuous improvement, the search engine regularly updates and improves its algorithm. Furthermore, Google was one of the first to present its search results in a clear fashion embellished with visuals and photos, appealing to the laziest and least technologically inclined among us.

Finally, the company offers a complete range of products to facilitate search and provide better results: Google Maps, Street View, YouTube, Google Flights, Knowledge Graph, etc.

The fact remains that Google is THE standard today in optimization and it is imperative to speak its language and learn how to take advantage of its power for your own business goals. Do not hesitate to get in touch with one of our experts for an orientation session!

 

Artificial Intelligence (AI) helps Google Ads to improve advertising performance. Even better, Google now uses AI to show ads and to automatically send results to your company account.

Choosing and verifying ad location

Artificial intelligence is a way to enhance human intelligence with the help of powerful computers. By combining AI with your ad campaign data and history, for example lead location, conversion timeframe and keywords at the source of conversion, you will get incredibly effective suggestions. The idea is to determine which ads work best.

At the beginning of 2018 Google Auto Ads was launched to help you monetize your online content. This software uses machine learning to position the ads at the best location on a web page. Then in April 2018, Google improved Auto Ads by using AI to strengthen controls and help avoid ads being shown in association with controversial content.

Suggesting ads from AI

Google has announced to advertising and marketing teams that it was starting to show ads to companies based on AI learnings. The objective was to identify which ads are better suited to bring the best results. These ads are now delivered to a company’s Google Ads account. If you leave your account on automatic pilot, these ads will be automatically generated every 14 days. You can see the obvious benefit of convenience, but keep in mind that you can decline this functionality and use analytics to make your own decisions. This way you can manage your ad campaign yourself.

Google’s objective is to encourage clicks. But getting more clicks for Google doesn’t automatically mean more customers and sales for your company – those are likely your objectives. That’s why human interaction is also valuable.

It is essential that you keep watching and analyzing your conversion rates and discuss with your team. Even though AI is useful, don’t overlook your own intelligence and strategy. Your sales depend on it.

To explore this deeper, get in touch with our team at Amauta Marketing.

2019 has just started and with it comes a series of innovations. Digital marketing keeps on quickly evolving, not only with the help of emerging technology, but also because of new demands from consumers.

Here are the essential five trends :

  1. Large scale personalization

Customer acquisition and retention increasingly depend on the quality of data you have on their profile. To attract new clients, segmentation techniques remain effective, but obtaining data on life stages instead of demographics can help you identify subgroups with similar habits. Mass personalization is the result where data and artificial intelligence work together.

  1. Big Data and Artificial Intelligence

Structured data (easily searchable patterns) are now being challenged by more and more unstructured data online (videos, images, social media postings). This vast amount of big data can make analysis a challenge. However, in 2019, advances in artificial intelligence are making the analytics easier and help develop digital marketing tools for the future. Stay tuned!

  1. The breakthrough of chatbots

To accompany your customers online experience, and answer frequent questions immediately, personal assistants, or chatbots, are growing in popularity. First seen in 2017 and 2018, chatbots will become a common presence on websites this year. To learn how to install and use chatbots effectively, get in touch with us.

  1. Vocal Search

Another trend that is gaining momentum: requests by voice input. The increasing use of digital assistants in the home make using voice commands a part of everyday life for many consumers. This is a functionality you should consider if you want to stay current with consumer habits. To properly introduce this technology, you will want to tweak your SEO strategy. For more information, get in touch with us and we can take you through the details.

  1. Local Influencers

Finally, using influencers is still worth considering in 2019. The real trick, is to use local influencers. Unless you are a multinational, or well-established e-commerce company, your marketing will be focussed locally. Look out for local influencers in your market region and consider establishing a partnership.

There is plenty to think about for the new year! Take some time to consider what might be best for your situation, but keeping up with your consumer’s habits is paramount to long-term success. Happy 2019!

 

For all those who own a store, a commercial business or a restaurant, Google My Business is indispensable. In fact, even if you provide services in a certain geographical zone without brick & mortar, Google My Business could also be very beneficial.

Google My Business (GMB) has been around since June 2014. This free service allows you to create a business listing on Google Maps and provide key information to your potential or existing clients and ways they can connect with you. Some think that 50% of all smart phone searches are with a local address and we all know most Internet searches are done through Google. By being one of the main suppliers of this kind of service, Google My Business offers also other advantages:

  1. Attract local clients

By supplying your business address or your business region in Google My Business, you will attract numerous local customers. This gives you more opportunities to retain them because of your proximity, convenience and ability to meet face to face allows you to establish a close relationship.

  1. Improve your search engine optimization (SEO)

Your presence on Google My Business gives you better positioning in Google searches because the tool participates to the search engine optimization (SEO) of your brand. Be meticulous and provide exactly the same information (company name, coordinates, etc.) in all the optimization tools to facilitate the job of the search engines.

  1. Communicate on multiple channels

Google My Business is an added communication channel to your website. Post your business hours, add photos – for example the front of your business – publish videos from your YouTube channel or organize virtual visits with Business View to diversify your content. You can also do live chat.

The tool allows your clients to leave a comment on the products or services sold by your company. Be sure to reply as often as possible: it shows your sense of service and commitment. Responding to a negative comment by offering a solution will considerably improve your brand image.

  1. Analyse Internet users

The Insight tab allows you to access multiple analytics to verify your company’s visibility (how many times the information has been seen), the audience (by age, sex and country), and your target’s interactions (how they reacted to published content). The insightful dashboard features all functionalities.

Easy to use, Google My Business can also be included in a global optimization strategy. In that case, it is important to take the time to analyze your current digital situation, your objectives and the means that you wish to implement. Amauta Marketing can help you solidify all of this in an efficient way. Let’s get in touch!

 

 

Investing in the search engine optimization of your website (SEO) hasn’t always been popular. Surprising, even though SEO essentially guarantees you a digital presence that is highly effective at attracting new customers. Here are 4 key advantages:

  1. An optimized and naturally searched website gives a professional and trustworthy brand image. By offering Internet users relevant, high quality content and indexing your content correctly, you attract valuable users who prefer to avoid the paid search results links and go directly on websites that rank highly in organic results. This builds trust and can lead to a loyal customer base.
  2. Optimization lets you learn the habits of your visitors. By tracking a user’s path through your website, you can identify important keywords for them and combine them with the information supplied by Google keywords generator. You can even influence their path by improving the internal structure of your website as well as its internal and external links.
  3. A good natural search ranking should not be impacted by a Google algorithm change. In August 2018, Google modified its algorithm (called the Medic update, because it concerned websites linked to health primarily, but in the end, it impacted all websites) creating panic for many websites. A regular optimization, based on quality content and solid technical indexation, allows you to stay on top of any shift in the landscape.
  4. SEO is easy to measure and is profitable. With the help of Google Analytics, you have access to a variety of data and diagrams, displaying your website activities, as well as your visitor’s behaviours. Bringing in an SEO specialist will save you time by analyzing this data and advising you how to best exploit this information to develop a digital strategy to meet your business goals.

To improve the value of your website, don’t turn your back to SEO. It’s a proven way to elevate your brand, expand your business reach and support your web marketing campaigns. To take advantage of the power of SEO, ask us for more information.

 

Working with a Google Partner Certified agency is a big advantage. In 2018, Amauta Marketing has once again earned its Google Partner certification to the pride of our whole team and the benefit of our clients.

  1. Recognized expertise

Working with an agency that is Google certified proves that your agency has the technical skills and expertise necessary to effectively use Pay-Per-Click (PPC) and Google Ads campaigns. Certified Members have been evaluated and are proficient at Google best practices.

  1. Masters of all the tools and features

Google Ads campaigns can become fairly complex depending on your business objectives. Google Partner Certification ensures that the agency is familiar with all the different options and tool configurations to give you optimal results, the best quality, at the right cost.

  1. Quality of service verification

Google regularly audits your Google certified agency through performance follow-ups to ensure that you get the best possible service for your Google Ads campaigns. This allows you to invest wisely, knowing that your interests will be the highest priority.

  1. Access to personalized advice

One of the main benefits of working with a certified agency, is that you have quick access to a Google representative who can answer all your questions, whether it be technical or account management.

  1. All the latest advancements

Finally, Google Partner Certification allows your agency to be aware of the latest feature developments or apps and make them available to you before your competition. An excellent way to be at the leading edge of the market.

So, do not hesitate and discover all that Amauta Marketing can offer you.