The Google Ad Grant programme provides free Google Ads to select charitable, non-profit organisations. Google is offering $10.000 a month in free advertising on the search network (check our previous blog to find out more on the differences between Google’s search and display network). Imagine the potential of having $10.000 of free advertising per month for your organisation. Not only can you can increase awareness for your cause, but you can attract more people who are willing and actively looking to donate, recruit volunteers and share your story. Who can apply for the Google Ad Grant? Google Ad Grant programme is only available to non-profit organisations, excluding governmental entities and organisations, hospitals and medical groups, schools, academic institutions and universities. For more information you can read the official Google Grants eligibility guidelines. When your application is approved you must meet Google’s strict programme policies. We’ve picked out the most important criteria: Ads must be mission based and relevant to your organisation Maximum bidding of $2 per keyword Maximum spend of $329/day ($10.000 per month) Ads can only run on Google Search Network Account must maintain a minimum click-through rate (CTR) of 5% each month   In order for you to maximise the potential of the Google Ad Grant you need to consider the following: 1. Have a plan Create a plan for running your Ads – don’t just run them for the sake of having Ads. Create Ads for a specific purpose or objective, so that you can measure their impact, such as increasing donations, event registrations, signups or calls. 2. Optimise your website copy Website copy is important for running Google Ads, you will need to optimise SEO copy on your website which correlates with your Ads. Explain what your organisation is about and what you do in order to help generate more interest in your Ads – and don’t forget to include specific call to actions on your website. 3. Organise your campaign An important part of the Google Ads process is the campaign organisation. Divide your campaigns into groups separated by the different audiences with different call to actions for users to take. This will help you identify which campaigns are working and which aren’t, so you can constantly optimise their performance. 4. Pick the right keywords Selecting the right keywords is the most important part of the setting up your account for the Google Ad Grant.  Keywords determine if your Ads are eligible to show or not, so you must perform extensive research in order to find the most suitable ones for your organisation. Use phrases that are relevant to your organisation and don’t forget to include them in your Ad copy. 5. Optimise your Ad copy Optimise your Ad copy and make sure it’s relevant to your website copy and the keywords you are using. Google Ads have a quality score which determines if your Ads are eligible to show based on a user’s search. Link your Ads to related landing pages only, if the

Picture this scenario; you are a successful business owner with a website to advertise and help sell your products. You set the website up 8 years ago and hired a marketing agency to create a beautiful website for you. You were so proud when it first launched! But now you can see your web traffic has drastically decreased, the bounce rate has gone up and you’re getting fewer leads coming through to your site month by month. Sounds familiar? You’re not alone, many companies find themselves in a similar scenario. The internet changes rapidly and it can be hard to keep up, so we’ve put together a list of 10 things you definitely need to update on your website, in order to increase traffic to your website and get more leads. 1. Add a cookie popup   GDPR compliance, it’s a term we’re all familiar with. GDPR stands for “General Data Protection Regulation’ and it went into effect in 2016. For most businesses, this legislation affects them in two areas: Users have to consent to tracking through online cookies. Any website that uses these cookies must give first-time visitors the option to accept or decline this tracking. This is often done through a banner at the page footer, or a pop-up screen. Users have to consent to use of their data for specific purposes. An example of this would be consent for a business to use an email address to send marketing emails or newsletters. You must ensure you have a consent form (often this will be a checkbox with a short description) in place if you are planning to use this data.   2. Work with a responsive layout Did you know that in 2018, the average person in the UK spent over 24 hours a week on the internet? That’s twice as long as 10 years ago. How are these users accessing the internet? Through their smartphone.  In late 2015, mobile web traffic took over desktop traffic for the first time, and has been growing in use ever since. What does this mean for your business? In basic terms, your website needs to be responsive to be successful. This can be achieved through a mobile-first approach and a layout that looks good across all devices. Want to make sure your website is working as it should for mobile? Use responsivedesignchecker.com to check for yourself. 3. Add an SSL certificate Have you ever searched for a company, clicked a link and seen the following screen? This warning screen can appear on any website that uses ‘http’ in their web address, as opposed to the secure ‘https’ connection. As you can imagine, this warning can cause first time visitors to bounce before they have cast a single glance of your website. Fortunately, this issue can be fixed easily. Contact your domain provider and ask them to set you up with an SSL certificate. Do you already have an SSL certificate but your site is still loading through an insecure connection?

Many business owners question the value of marketing. Is it really worth dedicating a significant chunk of your business budget to marketing campaigns? When executed well, then yes. You should expect your return from marketing to be 3-5 times more than your spend. It is unlikely this will be the case in the initial stages of delivering your marketing campaigns so don’t expect instantaneous results. Set a timescale of when you want to be seeing real results. If you’re not achieving what you predicted, why not? Always assess your success and measure the performance of your marketing campaigns. So, how can you start measuring the effectiveness of marketing? Step 1: Set the objectives for marketing campaigns What is it you are trying to achieve? When do you want to achieve this, and how does this objective contribute towards the overall goals of the business? This should be the basis of your marketing plan and campaigns , if you need some advice on writing an effective marketing plan, check out our previous blog post. Step 2: How will it be measured? What does success look like, and what tools are we going to use to track whether it has been successful? This could be financial metrics, however dependent on the overall goals, there may be other factors. Step 3: Test If we’re trialling a campaign, then let’s make sure it’s going to work before we roll it out to all our potential customers. With email marketing campaigns, that could be testing subject lines and layouts with a small group to ensure that we get as many ‘clicks’ as possible, or with advertising we can test offers in smaller magazines or websites for short periods before rolling out a more complete campaign. It’s a basic concept – but fail small! Step 4: Do it Make the investment, and create the marketing campaigns. Step 5: Measure! Did it work? Did you achieve your goals?  Step 6: Refine, review and do it again. Now that you’ve measured the performance against your goals, you can decide on what you need to change or add, in order to make it a success, or if it’s working well – do it again. What measurements can you use for marketing campaigns? Tip 1: Get more from your website analytics The majority of businesses use Google Analytics to simply measure website visits, bounce rates and most visited pages. Not enough businesses are using Google Analytics to its full potential. Analytics provides so many useful features that enable you to understand how your members are using your website. It can also tell you what terms and keywords people are using to find your website. Here’s a few things you can start doing to help you get more from Analytics: 1. Measure conversions with goals In order to get the most out of Google Analytics, you need to define and set goals, just as you would for your acquisition and retention goals. Setting up conversions will confirm that you are on track to reach your

Creating engaging content is key to connecting with your audience, and nothing has proven more engaging than video content, but video content is changing. A few years ago, if you saw a brand post a vertical video you would most likely find it very puzzling and peculiar to watch something that took up the whole screen in an unconventional ratio. Fast forward a few years to now, it’s 2019 and people are actively recording… vertically. Why is this? Well, the number of people that spend their time swiping through their phone with their thumb has increased dramatically over the years. Stopping every so often to double tap on a photo they like or to play a video that they come across on their social feeds. Tilting their screen from this position of comfort to watch a video on a horizontal display would simply ruin their flow. Switching apps would only cause more havoc… This is why apps are increasingly trying to offer a complete experience to their users. Enter IGTV by Instagram – a vertical video platform that enables videos to be viewed in the direction of a thumb scrolling through a mobile device. So how can your company utilise IGTV to create engaging content? The possibilities are endless, but in this blog we will talk about the best ways to build an audience through creating engaging content that will not only grow your engagement, but also increase brand awareness. This can be done through creating brand new, exclusive content for your followers, or by simply repurposing old content with a spin, quite literally, as you will need to switch your content from a horizontal format, to a vertical one. Key criteria for IGTV videos to contain engaging content are for them to be well planned, dynamic and entertaining, in order to capture your audience’s attention. Let your viewers in! One way of doing this is through taking them behind the scenes of a product being manufactured, showing them how it is made, and the process behind it. Giving your audience an insight into how your company operates, resembling a virtual tour of a factory. If of course you aren’t manufacturing products, then take them around your offices. Show them a sneak peak into the daily lives of employees at your company. If you have trendy offices, show them off through engaging content, it gives your audience an insight into your company’s culture, and therefore increases your brand awareness.   Will IGTV need a TV Guide? Utilise other features on Instagram, such as the questions feature on stories to make even more engaging content for viewers. Ask your followers questions, and answer them on an IGTV video, making them feel involved in the process. Use IGTV to share and showcase your knowledge, with regular weekly episodes on a topic that you specialise in. This could be anything from weekly tips and tricks, to up-to-date industry news that would be relevant to not only your brand, but also your fan base –