PSPINC Official Company Blog

Marketing Analytics: Key Metrics To Look Out For

Jan

9

Utilizing data analytics in marketing is vital to succeeding. With its ability to analyze and even predict data, it can do wonders in perfecting marketing strategies, saving time and money, developing a better understanding of your customers, creating better-performing content, and optimizing marketing channels. The challenging part of marketing analytics, however, consists of how marketing data has changed over the years. It’s also hard to figure out what marketers should look out for since there’s so much data easily available to you. Every platform has its own nuances, so there are different key metrics marketers should look out for.

Key Metrics on Google Platforms (Analytics/Ads)

Website Performance Metrics

Traffic (Page Views): a metric that measures how many times a single user views a page
Most visited pages: a metric that breaks down what the most visited pages are to website visitors
Search ranking: a metric that shows your website's position in the search engine results page (SERP) for a specific query
Unique visits: a metric that counts the number of visitors to a website, but only counts their first visit
Conversions: a metric that counts an important user action like making a purchase, filling out a form, signing up for a newsletter, etc.

(Paid) Digital Ad Metrics

Impressions: a metric that measures the number of times a user sees the ad.
Click-through rate (CTR): the percentage of people who click on the ad, determined by dividing the number of clicks by the number of times your ad is shown and multiplying that number by 100 (impressions). The higher this number is, the better.
Cost-per-click (CPC): a metric that measures how much it costs each time someone clicks on your ad. The lower this number is, the better.
Conversions: a metric that counts an important user action like making a purchase, filling out a form, signing up for a newsletter, etc.
Conversion rate: the percentage of people who convert (purchase, fill out a form, sign up for a newsletter, etc.), determined by dividing the number of users who convert by the overall size of the audience and multiplying that number by 100.
Engagement rate: the percentage of people who engage (click, like, share, comment, etc.) with your ad, determined by dividing the total number of engagements by the total number of followers and multiplying that number by 100.

Key Metrics on Other Marketing Platforms

person holding smartphone with apps shown: facebook, snapchat, instagram, twitter, chrome, gmail, spotify, messenger

Social Media Metrics

Total reach: the number of users that saw your content (also known as impressions).
Likes: the number of people who like your content.
Views: the number of people who view your content.
Comments: the number of people who comment on your content.
Shares: the number of people who share your content.
Followers: the number of people who follow your account.
Subscribers: the number of people who subscribe to your account.

Email Marketing Metrics

Open rate: the percentage of people who open your email, determined by dividing the number of people who open your email by the number of people who received the email and multiplying that number by 100.
Click rate: the percentage of people who click on links within your email, determined by dividing the number of people who clicked on links in your email by the number of people who received the email and multiplying that number by 100.

Aside from just the mass amount of marketing data there is to analyze, other challenges include the difficulty of reading through that analytical info. Just like all marketing, it continues to change and evolve over the years. That’s why we provide bi-weekly reports in all our marketing package plans, making it easier for small businesses everywhere to market their business.

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc.

1404 140th Place N.E., Bellevue, WA 98007

PSPINC Creates Tools For Your Business

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc. is headquartered in Bellevue, Washington and provides domain, web, and email hosting to more than 40,000 companies of all sizes around the world. We design and develop our own software and are committed to helping businesses of all sizes grow and thrive online. For more information you can contact us at 800-232-3989, by email at info@pspinc.com or visit us online at https://www.pspinc.com.

#advertising #blog #branding #business #businesstips #digitalmarketing #email #facebook #google #instagram #marketing #marketingdigital #marketingtips #officetips #seo #smallbusiness #socialmedia #tech #technology #twitter #web

What's New Newsletter Vol. 201 "Outsourcing Marketing Work”

Jan

4

Marketing is a constantly changing industry, which is why it's difficult to determine what works and what doesn't work for your business. What works for one company won't necessarily work for another, so marketing today consists of a lot of experimenting and testing, which can then take a lot of time and effort to get it right. So, with this in mind, it's not surprising that many businesses outsource their marketing work to a marketing agency or another company with the marketing expertise needed to succeed.

That's why we offer marketing packages that don't just break down the kind of work we do for our clients, but they're also affordable, so they'll fit your business needs and budget. After decades of helping small businesses grow online, we have the experience and expertise you need to thrive online. To learn more, head over to our Digital Marketing page on our website and check out our budget-friendly marketing plans, designed to fit your specific business needs.

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc.

1404 140th Place N.E., Bellevue, WA 98007

PSPINC Creates Tools For Your Business

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc. is headquartered in Bellevue, Washington and provides domain, web, and email hosting to more than 40,000 companies of all sizes around the world. We design and develop our own software and are committed to helping businesses of all sizes grow and thrive online. For more information you can contact us at 800-232-3989, by email at info@pspinc.com or visit us online at https://www.pspinc.com.

#advertising #b2b #blog #branding #business #businesstips #businesstools #digitalmarketing #google #marketing #marketingtips #newsletter #pspincwhatsnewnewsletter #sales #seo #smallbusiness #socialmedia #tech #technology #twitter #web #webdevelopment

What’s New Newsletter Vol. 199 “Starter Web Design Plan Now on Sale!”

Dec

21

The new year is the perfect time to give your website an update to make sure it continues performing well and helps reach your business goals. So, why not get your site custom-designed? While it’s easy to use a popular website builder, it also traps your website into looking very similar to many others on the market. With a custom design, you not only stick out amongst your competitors, but it also lets you add design elements and features that may not be included in the multitude of popular templates and gives you more opportunity to add more of your business’s branding to your website.

That’s why we’re now offering $200 off our Starter web design plan for the holidays! With our Starter plan, get:

Ten custom pages
WebdeXpress (our website builder) or WordPress template selection
One-year web hosting with SSL certificate included
Contact form
Mobile-friendly
Social media integration
One additional language
20% off web updates for one year

With over 36 years of experience helping hundreds of customers grow their online business, our designers and developers at PSPINC have the expertise you need. Get started by heading over to our web design page and get $200 off our Starter web design plan now.

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc.

1404 140th Place N.E., Bellevue, WA 98007

PSPINC Creates Tools For Your Business

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc. is headquartered in Bellevue, Washington and provides domain, web, and email hosting to more than 40,000 companies of all sizes around the world. We design and develop our own software and are committed to helping businesses of all sizes grow and thrive online. For more information you can contact us at 800-232-3989, by email at info@pspinc.com or visit us online at https://www.pspinc.com.

#b2b #blog #branding #business #businesstips #designer #developer #ecommerce #newsletter #pspinc #searchengineoptimization #seo #smallbusiness #tech #technology #web #webdesign #webdevelopment #webdexpress #webhosting #website #websites #wordpress

What’s New Newsletter Vol. 196 “Benefits of Custom Web Development”

Nov

30

While it’s more costly, custom web development is well worth it in the end because of how beneficial it is for your brand. Custom web development benefits businesses, especially small businesses by:

1. Increasing security: Businesses can implement robust security measures to keep their data safe from cyber-attacks with the help of custom web development.

2. Giving businesses the ability to scale over time with their website: A successful business doesn’t stay the same forever, so their website shouldn’t either. Custom web development makes it easier to adapt to how your business and website change over time.

3. Tailoring to your brand: While there are multiple popular website builders and templates out there, custom web development allows for more branding opportunities and gives the website a personalized touch that templates just can’t offer.

4. Creating custom features: Every business is unique in what it offers, the customers they have, and what they need to succeed. Custom web development makes it possible for features that aren’t readily available on popular web builders.

5. Increasing search engine optimization (SEO): With more control over the website, developers can create the site with SEO in mind, which makes it easier for your site to rank higher organically in search engine results.

At PSPINC, we’ve worked with small businesses for decades to custom-develop websites to help them succeed. To request custom development from us, head over to our Web and App Development page.

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc.

1404 140th Place N.E., Bellevue, WA 98007

PSPINC Creates Tools For Your Business

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc. is headquartered in Bellevue, Washington and provides domain, web, and email hosting to more than 40,000 companies of all sizes around the world. We design and develop our own software and are committed to helping businesses of all sizes grow and thrive online. For more information you can contact us at 800-232-3989, by email at info@pspinc.com or visit us online at https://www.pspinc.com.

#b2b #blog #business #businesstips #businesstools #digitalmarketing #google #marketing #marketingdigital #pspinc #seo #smallbusiness #tech #technology #web #webdevelopment #webdexpress #websitebuilder #webtools #wordpress

What is Web Hosting?

Nov

28

Web hosting refers to providing storage space and access to websites. In other words, web hosting acts like a space where websites store their files so users can view them online. So, every website you’ve ever been on is hosted on a server.

There are three types of hosting:

Shared: consists of one server where multiple websites share resources in equal proportions

Dedicated: offers end users all the hardware resources of a given server instead of sharing them like in shared hosting

VPS hosting: stands for virtual private server and is like a mix of the two, where a single virtual machine on a piece of physical hardware is shared with other virtual machines with levels of performance, flexibility, and control that fit somewhere between what shared and dedicated hosting offers.

Features Worth Considering

When choosing what features you need for your website, start by looking at what each type of hosting plan offers. Paid plans will generally have additional features that make it easier to manage your site as opposed to a free plan, which has the basics needed to get a website online. The more a web hosting plan costs, the more features there will be. But all you really need to keep in mind are these three aspects of your web hosting plan: speed, support, and scalability.

In terms of speed, multiple factors affect your website’s speed—one of which is your web hosting plans, and if your site takes longer than two seconds to load, generally, a user won’t stay on your site. When it comes to support, it’s important to know that your web hosting provider can get your site up and back up and running quickly if it were to unexpectedly go down. Lastly, there’s scalability. Your plan might work for you now, but as your site gets more traffic, you’ll want to upgrade your plan–your web hosting provider needs to have that option available for you to grow.

There is a myriad of choices when it comes time to buy web hosting, and PSPINC is one of them! Dreamersi is our premiere web hosting option that we’ve fully custom-built in-house, making it easier to control the overall hosting environment and features we’ve built into it. To learn more, head over to Dreamersi.com.

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc.

1404 140th Place N.E., Bellevue, WA 98007

PSPINC Creates Tools For Your Business

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc. is headquartered in Bellevue, Washington and provides domain, web, and email hosting to more than 40,000 companies of all sizes around the world. We design and develop our own software and are committed to helping businesses of all sizes grow and thrive online. For more information you can contact us at 800-232-3989, by email at info@pspinc.com or visit us online at https://www.pspinc.com.

#b2b #blog #business #businesstips #businesstools #customersupport #dreamersi #emailhosting #hosting #marketing #pspinc #seo #smallbusiness #tech #technology #video #web #webdevelopment #webhosting #website #websites #webtools #youtube

What’s New Newsletter Vol. 177 “Marketing Your Website”

Jul

20

Creating a beautifully designed website can be great for business, but marketing your business shouldn’t stop there. You also need to make sure people know it exists. To do that, you can market your site by updating your site content and sharing the link to social media. Just because you have a great site, it doesn’t mean it always will be. There are plenty of obviously outdated websites still up online because the site owner never updated their site.

Other than updating antiquated website designs, the site’s content also needs to be updated. Not just to display relevant and correct information, but also to help with search engine optimization (SEO). In addition to that, marketing your site with social media can be a great way to spread the word. But promoting your business and site effectively is not always an easy feat. For more help with marketing your business, reach out to our expert marketing team.

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc.

1404 140th Place N.E., Bellevue, WA 98007

PSPINC Creates Tools For Your Business

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc. is headquartered in Bellevue, Washington and provides domain, web, and email hosting to more than 40,000 companies of all sizes around the world. We design and develop our own software and are committed to helping businesses of all sizes grow and thrive online. For more information you can contact us at 800-232-3989, by email at info@pspinc.com or visit us online at https://www.pspinc.com.

#advertising #blog #business #businesstips #businesstools #digitalmarketing #google #marketing #newsletter #pspincwhatsnewnewsletter #sales #searchengineoptimization #seo #smallbusiness #socialmedia #tech #technology #web #webdesign #websites #webtools

Grow Your Business with Social Media

Jul

18

Social media marketing is an invaluable asset to include in your digital marketing plan. It’s an easy but effective way to grow your business online. Most entrepreneurs today know how vital it can be to their business. But it’s what you do with social media that can make a real difference in how effective it can be. It’s not as simple as creating profiles on social media platforms; it’s about what you post.

There are currently billions of social media users worldwide. That only increases the number of potential customers and adds to brand awareness. It’s relatively inexpensive, and it gives you the opportunity to:

· Build your brand
· Grow your community online
· Increase website traffic
· Engage with your online audience
· Learn more about your customers
· Discover where to improve your overall business strategy

9 Social Media Marketing Tips

1. Create SMART Objectives

We’ve talked about SMART objectives here before, but when you do create them, make sure they align and inform your overall strategy. Every business’s objectives will be different, depending on the size of your business. Making sure your objectives are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and timely will help you grow your business sustainably.

2. Add relevant keywords to your social copy

Hashtags can be great, but they’re not the only thing social media algorithms parse for. They also look for relevant keywords in social media captions. Marketers still debate if hashtags are even effective marketing-wise on social media. For some, it helps increase overall exposure, for others, they don’t report any discernable difference. But adding relevant keywords to your captions will make it more likely that your posts will end up on someone’s For You or Explore page.

3. Target users

The great part about sponsored social posts is that you can easily target the right users to see your content. And finding the right users makes it much more likely they’ll purchase from you because it’ll show for users that are actually interested in what you’re trying to sell. While you can try to sell your products to everyone, the reality is that not everyone wants or needs what you’re offering. Plus, if you’re trying to sell to everyone, your ads end up being vague and uninspired, which won’t convince anyone to buy from you.

4. Focus on brand intent

Social media’s a great way to promote your products. But if all your posts are promotional, your business comes off sounding like a pushy salesperson. And no one likes that. Instead, focus on creating and curating content that shows people what your brand cares about. It won’t just give potential customers a better idea of what your company stands for, but it also results in a much more interested audience.

5. Market on multiple social media platforms

There are multiple major social platforms out there, and marketers alike use more than just one. Each one has something different to bring to the table, including a different audience. So, use that to your advantage! You can tailor your approach toward each platform, taking advantage of the best types of content, posting times, and posting frequencies.

6. Create an editorial calendar

To make it easier, you can plan content in advance with an editorial calendar. On it, add specifics like images, captions, hashtags (if you’re using them), links, and whatever else you want to add to your social posts. But remember, you don’t have to stick to what you have; it’s also encouraged to post something spontaneous sometimes. Especially since sometimes they perform better than what you already have planned.

7. Optimize your posting frequency

When marketing on social media, it’s not just about what you post, it’s about when. There are plenty of sources out there that recommend what times and days of the week work best for reach and engagement. But what works for others won’t necessarily work for you. So, try testing out different times and different days to see what works best for each platform. That way, you’ll get the most out of your social media marketing efforts for your business.

8. Create paid social ads

The way social media algorithms work is mysterious, but the one thing we know for sure is that paid social posts are guaranteed to get seen by more users. So, if you’re having problems with increasing overall reach, invest in paid social ads. Or you can boost or promote an already well-performing post. Regardless, research shows sponsored posts perform better on social media. Just don’t focus all your efforts on it; organic social posts still help tell your brand story online.

9. Interact with your audience online

Lastly, interacting with your followers and potential customers should be a vital part of your marketing plan. Engagement on social media is highly valued by each platform’s algorithm, so replying, reacting, and reposting other users’ content will increase your profile’s overall exposure. And it’ll encourage other users to do the same.

Marketing on social media isn’t always easy, especially since best practices are continually evolving. So, reach out to our team, who are experts in helping small businesses grow online.

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc.

1404 140th Place N.E., Bellevue, WA 98007

PSPINC Creates Tools For Your Business

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc. is headquartered in Bellevue, Washington and provides domain, web, and email hosting to more than 40,000 companies of all sizes around the world. We design and develop our own software and are committed to helping businesses of all sizes grow and thrive online. For more information you can contact us at 800-232-3989, by email at info@pspinc.com or visit us online at https://www.pspinc.com.

#advertising #app #b2b #blog #branding #business #businesstips #businesstools #digitalmarketing #facebook #google #instagram #marketing #marketingdigital #marketingtips #seo #smallbusiness #socialmedia #tech #technology #twitter #web #websites #webtools

What’s New Newsletter Vol. 172 “The Importance of Positive Google Reviews”

Jun

15

When you want to look for a new restaurant to go to or get your car serviced, the first place you’ll look is Google. The same can be said when you’re looking for any kind of service from a business. After entering your query into Google, the first thing that’ll pop up is a list of businesses in your local area. And right below those business names, you’ll find their overall rating. The last thing people want to do is choose to work with a business with a bad rating.

Positive Google reviews act as social proof, making your business look more trustworthy. And they influence potential customers to purchase from you, which can make a major impact on sales. On the technical side, it also helps with optimizing your business website for search engines. Google’s algorithm favors new and original content, and customer reviews feed into that. Having good search engine optimization (SEO) helps your site’s overall visibility. If you’re looking for some extra help on better optimizing your site for search engines, reach out to us at PSPINC. We have experts ready to help!

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc.

1404 140th Place N.E., Bellevue, WA 98007

PSPINC Creates Tools For Your Business

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc. is headquartered in Bellevue, Washington and provides domain, web, and email hosting to more than 40,000 companies of all sizes around the world. We design and develop our own software and are committed to helping businesses of all sizes grow and thrive online. For more information you can contact us at 800-232-3989, by email at info@pspinc.com or visit us online at https://www.pspinc.com.

#blog #business #businesstips #businesstools #digitalmarketing #google #marketing #marketingdigital #marketingtips #pspincwhatsnewnewsletter #sales #searchengineoptimization #seo #smallbusiness #tech #technology #web #webdevelopment #website

What’s New Newsletter Vol. 171 “Reminder to Switch Over to Google Analytics 4”

Jun

8

In case you missed it, Google Analytics is sun-setting Universal Analytics (UA) at the beginning of next month. In 2020, Google Analytics introduced Google Analytics 4 (GA4), giving users the option to use either. Now, to favor GA4 over UA, Google Analytics will stop collecting and processing data for UA properties starting July 1st. With more users becoming concerned about their privacy online over the last few years, many opt out of tracking cookies when surfing the web. UA relies heavily on cookies to track user behavior, but GA4 uses event-based modeling to gather data.

If you haven’t already opted out, it’ll automatically switch your site over to GA4, but we recommend you make the switch sooner rather than later. The sooner you switch, the more data you’ll collect in the new system. With that data, it’ll help determine trends and insights to help you improve your upcoming business and marketing plans. For directions on how to switch manually, head over to one of our older blog posts. If you need more help to migrate your data from UA to GA4, give us a call! We have experts ready to help you with your SEO and other marketing needs.

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc.

1404 140th Place N.E., Bellevue, WA 98007

PSPINC Creates Tools For Your Business

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc. is headquartered in Bellevue, Washington and provides domain, web, and email hosting to more than 40,000 companies of all sizes around the world. We design and develop our own software and are committed to helping businesses of all sizes grow and thrive online. For more information you can contact us at 800-232-3989, by email at info@pspinc.com or visit us online at https://www.pspinc.com.

#blog #business #businesstips #businesstools #digitalmarketing #ga4 #google #googleanalytics #googleanalytics4 #marketing #marketingdigital #marketingtips #pspinc #seo #smallbusiness #tech #technology #ua #universalanalytics #web #website #websites

What’s New Newsletter Vol. 170 “What is Content Marketing?”

Jun

1

Unlike traditional marketing efforts, content marketing doesn’t promote by directly selling to potential customers. Instead, it pulls people in with educational and entertaining content. This content can be through blog posts, social media posts, videos, and email content among others. With content marketing, you aren’t trying to sell anything; instead, your goal is to educate and entertain people, hoping they’ll be interested in buying something from you later. But your content can’t just be random, otherwise, there won’t be any connection between your content and your company.

Content marketing helps establish your brand as an authority in the field and helps with audience retention. The more high-quality educational content you have for potential customers to find, the more authority your company will have in their eyes. If your content is relevant, informational, and interesting to potential customers, they’ll likely stay on the page for longer. And they’ll come back for more. But regardless, producing high-quality content consistently while juggling other business tasks is difficult. But the effort will be well worth it in the end. For more marketing help, reach out to our experts at PSPINC.

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc.

1404 140th Place N.E., Bellevue, WA 98007

PSPINC Creates Tools For Your Business

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc. is headquartered in Bellevue, Washington and provides domain, web, and email hosting to more than 40,000 companies of all sizes around the world. We design and develop our own software and are committed to helping businesses of all sizes grow and thrive online. For more information you can contact us at 800-232-3989, by email at info@pspinc.com or visit us online at https://www.pspinc.com.