Please note this post contains affiliate links, which means I will make a small commission (at no cost to you) if you make a purchase after clicking on my links. If my review helps you, I’d appreciate it if you used the links below. Thanks!

I officially incorporated Charles Ave Marketing in 2013. At the time, I was emailing invoices that I created in Pages or InDesign, and manually trying to keep track of incoming payments. As my company grew and I began working with an accountant, it soon became clear that my system wasn’t sustainable. That’s when I discovered FreshBooks.

What is FreshBooks?

FreshBooks is a cloud accounting software built for self-employed professionals. Using FreshBooks, you can send invoices, collect payments, create estimates, log expenses, and track your time, as well as track time for team members and freelancers you work with.

Me? Accounting?

Accounting is one of those disciplines I never thought I’d need to learn. I certainly never wanted to learn it. But as a business owner, knowing where your financials stand— what’s coming in and what’s going out — is crucial.

The nice thing about FreshBooks is it makes it all easy. You get a clear picture of your earnings, what’s owed to you, your expenses, and your net profit.

Probably the best-known accounting software out there is QuickBooks. The similar names make it confusing. But I realized right away that I found QuickBooks intimidating. FreshBooks had all the features I needed but a friendlier interface that was simple to use. Here’s a detailed comparison of FreshBooks vs. QuickBooks.

These are the features I love about FreshBooks:

Invoicing made easy

As a service-oriented business, I rely on invoicing. Using FreshBooks, I can customize my invoices with my logo and brand colors, and personalize my thank-you email. The software enables you to accept credit cards and ACH payments, a feature many of my clients find convenient. For my monthly retainer clients, I can even set up automatic recurring invoices – one less thing to do every month!

Clients have told me they love my invoicing system, and that reflects well on me. Using FreshBooks, clients can refer to present and past invoices, manage payments, and access records on their own. They even appreciate the automated payment reminders they get if an invoice has lingered a little too long.

Similarly, I can use FreshBooks to send estimates or project proposals to prospective clients. Once the prospect formally accepts the estimate online, I can turn that estimate into an invoice at the push of a button. It’s all ready to go out once the project is complete.

Effortless expense tracking

FreshBooks integrates with your bank accounts and credit cards, so there’s no manual entries or exporting and uploading files. Every day, FreshBooks updates itself with your most recent spending, keeping records up-to-date automatically.

FreshBooks has a mobile app which is useful for uploading receipts. You can snap a picture of the receipt and associate it with any expense. Because everything is cloud-based, your mobile and desktop versions of FreshBooks will stay in sync.

Credit Card and ACH payment options

Payments are well managed within FreshBooks. You can integrate Stripe or use FreshBooks Payments to accept credit cards (Visa, Mastercard, Discover, and American Express) and Apple Pay directly from your invoices. If a client uses the online payment option, the invoice is automatically marked as paid in your FreshBooks account. Then, the invoice amount minus the transaction fee is deposited straight into your bank account. Credit card transactions cost 2.9% of the invoice amount + $0.30 per transaction. If you use FreshBooks Payments, processing fees are automatically imported as expenses. The entire process from client payment to your bank account usually takes about two business days.

A new (and less expensive!) payment option just introduced for U.S. customers is ACH payments. ACH, or Automated Clearing House, is a network connecting major banks and all financial institutions in the United States. ACH payments cost 1% of the invoice amount through Freshbooks, so you’ll save fees over credit card payments. And, if your client usually pays by check, ACH is faster, more secure, and likely more convenient.

Of course, you can also enter payments manually into your FreshBooks account, so if you’re paid in other means like mailed-in checks or Bank Wire (I’ve done both), you just have to make sure you keep the records up to date.

Providing clients multiple ways to pay gives them choices, which they like, and helps you get paid faster, which you’ll like. According to FreshBooks, 80% of users that accept online payments agree that it improves client relationships. I can attest that one of my own clients loves that she can pay me using her credit card, and her payments usually come in the fastest.

There are no setup fees or additional monthly costs to offer online payment. FreshBooks makes it all fast, easy, and secure. Who doesn’t like that?

Time tracking that saves time

If you rely on hourly billing, time tracking is essential. Rather than trying to remember how much time you spent on a project and then creating a timesheet later, you and your team members can simply start a timer within FreshBooks. When you’re done, you’ll have an accurate time log ready to magically transform into an invoice.

What about tax time?

As I noted, I do work with an accountant, especially at tax time. Her name is Vicki, and she’s a godsend. I found her on Yelp and now she’s one of my business mentors (I quoted her in this article about my best advice to female entrepreneurs – that’s how much I love her).

Vicki relies on my yearly Profit & Loss report (P&L) that FreshBooks creates. When we meet, she pores over it, and it acts as the basis of our entire discussion. Because FreshBooks does such a thorough job of tracking my invoices, categorizing expenses, and calculating net profit, the P&L gives a year-long view of my business that makes filing taxes easier.

Other reports available in FreshBooks:

• Sales Tax summary
• Accounts aging
• Invoice reports (paid vs. outstanding)
• Expense reports
• Time entry reports
• Payments collected
• Trial balance
• General ledger

How much does FreshBooks cost?

FreshBooks offers monthly and yearly plans that are tiered based on the number of clients you have. It starts at only $15/month. See the latest pricing here.

Before you commit, use this link to take advantage of a free 30-day trial. 

A raving FreshBooks review

I hate math, which makes me think I might hate accounting. But FreshBooks makes it painless.

Even five years into owning my business, there’s a feeling of pride every time I send an invoice or see a payment. I’ve relied on FreshBooks in my own company, and I believe it just might help yours, too.

I encourage you to take a free trial, give FreshBooks a spin, and let me know what you think.

Author’s Note: Bing Ads is now known as Microsoft Advertising.

There’s no question that Google dominates search traffic, paid and organic. As an advertiser, you might ask yourself, why use Bing Ads at all? Let’s weigh the pros and cons of whether Bing Ads is an appropriate channel for your business.

Who uses Bing?

Estimates of Bing’s share of the search market vary. Not surprisingly, Bing has been the most generous with itself. In 2017, Microsoft claimed that Bing accounts for 33% market share in the US. The claim was met with some deserved skepticism. Even if overstated, however, remember that the vast majority of new computer sales are for Windows devices that come preloaded with Bing-defaulting browsers (previously Internet Explorer, now replaced with Microsoft Edge).

If you’re fairly web-savvy, it’s hard to imagine computer users who don’t immediately download a different browser like Chrome or Firefox. But imagine it, because even if less than the 33% market share claimed, it is a sizeable chunk of web traffic. I think of it as an audience that’s less cynical than we might be. I don’t have hard numbers to back this up, but a non-cynical person who happily uses the pre-installed programs is also less hesitant to click on paid ads instead of organic results. And probably less hesitant to convert.

This tracks with Bing’s claim that its audience spends 34% more online when shopping from their desktop computers than average internet searchers.

I don’t want to box the Bing audience as a bunch of Luddites stupidly clicking around the internet and buying stuff. But it is true that they don’t suffer from browser snobbishness. And as you approach your paid search strategy, perhaps you shouldn’t, either.

Why advertise on Bing? One good reason is you need to meet your customers where they are. Even if you don’t use Bing, they might.

Where do Bing Ads appear?

Bing’s search network consists of three parts:

1. Bing Ads appear along search results on Bing.com, AOL.com, and Yahoo.com, as well as sites owned and operated by Bing, such as MSN.com.
2. Bing also operates a network of syndicated search partner sites. These third-party sites use Bing and Yahoo search results.
3. Recently, Bing introduced Microsoft Audience Ads to its search network. These non-search native ad placements are shown beside articles on sites including MSN, Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Edge, and other partners. According to Bing,

We use consumer intent signals, which include search history, browse history, page content, and demographic information [to understand user interests]. These signals, combined with artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities, provide highly relevant content to users and determine which ads to display. Microsoft Audience Ads also conform to your search ads’ existing targeting and negative-keyword settings.

As an advertiser, you have the ability to set which of these three components within the Bing Ads search network your ads appear. By default, all three are included. (The Google search network is all-or-nothing, so this is an important difference between the platforms).

Are clicks on Bing Ads cheaper than Google?

Bing Ads has a reputation for lower costs-per-click than Google, in large part because of less competition. For one of my clients, the average CPC last month on Google Search was $3.96, but only $2.15 for identical keywords in Bing Ads, and Bing gave us higher ad positions. Similarly, Wordstream found that of its managed services clients, Bing CPCs were 33% lower than Google CPCs. However, depending on your keywords, you may find that Bing Ads CPCs are comparable to CPCs on Google Search. Overall costs will likely be lower simply because Bing Ads will bring you fewer clicks than Google Ads. Like I already stated, however, fewer clicks doesn’t mean worthless clicks.

To help you estimate CPC, Bing has its own Keyword Planner tool within the Bing Ads dashboard.

If you’re new to Bing Ads, you can get $100 in search advertising when you spend $25 through this link for even further savings.

Why use Bing Ads? Clicks might be cheaper than Google Ads.

How do Bing and Google differ?

Bing and Google are similar offerings. In fact, one of the best features of Bing is you can import your Google Ads campaigns and launch Bing Ads quickly. However, once your campaigns go live, the two platforms do behave differently.

For instance, you may find that the keywords that bring you the most clicks on Bing are not the same keywords that bring you the most clicks on Google. Each platform has its own algorithms to rank advertisers, so you may be surprised by what performs best.

I’ve also found that Bing is not as sophisticated with its language settings. One of my clients advertises in both English and Spanish. On Google, we see huge traffic on our Spanish keywords, but almost none from Bing.

The most important difference to note: if your traffic from Bing Ads is substantially lower than Google, a single conversion can have an outsized impact on conversion rates and performance data. I call these “onesy-twosy” conversions, and they can make it difficult to draw conclusions and make informed decisions. For instance, if you make a sale through Bing Ads and this month’s conversion numbers suddenly look amazing, you might not see that performance repeat itself next month. That one conversion was basically a fluke, and you need to be careful not to read too much into it.

Of course, the same can be said for any Google campaign that doesn’t gather a lot of data, so the disproportionate conversion issue is not unique to Bing.

As you advertise on both Bing and Google, you’ll surely find other quirks and differences between the two networks.

Why use Bing Ads? You can easily import your Google Ads campaigns so that your keywords, ad text, and targeting settings stay the same.

Should I advertise on Bing?

Bing Ads is one of those overlooked gems in an advertiser’s arsenal. Though the platform is smaller than Google, its users are often more engaged. Clicks may be less expensive on Bing than on Google. You can easily import your Google campaigns. And, by ignoring Bing, you may be missing out on customers looking for exactly what you have to offer.

If you’re new to Bing Ads, use this link to get $100 in search advertising when you spend $25.

And feel free to get in touch with Charles Ave Marketing for Bing Ads campaign management, an account audit, or PPC consulting.

People don’t share ads. But they do share stories — especially on platforms like Facebook and Instagram. The best stories are visual, and nothing captures a story quite like video. While shooting and producing video can be cost-prohibitive for small businesses, there’s an easy way to make social media videos to engage and delight your followers. It’s called Animoto.

How Animoto works

Animoto is an online video editor that easily creates shareable videos. No video editing experience is required; the software offers pre-built storyboard templates that you can customize with your brand colors, fonts, and logo. Or you can start from scratch and build your own storyboard.

Each scene (Animoto calls them blocks) can include video, still images, text, and/or voiceover. The software includes pre-built video transitions between blocks, as well as a library of stock photos from Getty and licensed music that you can use in your project at no added cost. The drag-and-drop editor easily resizes your text, changes the timing of each scene, and adjusts colors to match your brand.

Once you’ve finished editing your video, you can share it on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and other channels directly from your Animoto dashboard. You can also embed your video on your website, or download a full HD version to show anywhere, such as a TV display in your office.

Make social media videos with social-friendly storyboards

Animoto’s templates were designed to match the style of big brands and publishers you’ve undoubtedly seen on social media. Templates are available in both widescreen and square layouts. Recently, Animoto released three new storyboards specifically created for the real estate, travel, and wellness industries. There are also storyboards for product intros, recipes, event RSVPs, motivational quotes, step-based tutorials, and more.

I used a template called “Product Story” to create a series of explainer videos around marketing terms. Here’s the first one I made:

The software was crazy easy to use. I would even say it’s fun. The part that takes the longest to make social media videos like this one is finding the right photo and video assets. I used a combination of Animoto’s available stock photos, photos I sourced from Burst and other free stock photo sites, and free stock video from Pexels.

How much does Animoto cost?

Animoto offers a fully functional 30-day trial, so for me, it cost nothing. Once the trial is over, Animoto moves to a monthly subscription model. You can save substantially if you sign up for a year.

The lowest tier Animoto plan is called Personal, which is $16/month or $96/year. However, this plan includes Animoto branding at the end of each video, limited colors and fonts, and you can only download 720p video.

For most businesses, the Professional plan is a better option. It’s billed at $42/month or $264/year. The Professional plan enables you to download 1080p video without Animoto branding, and grants you access to more music tracks, storyboards, and unlimited colors. You also have the option to add your logo as a watermark to each video. If you need a multi-user account, the Business tier is $64/month or $408/year.

For comparison, similar software Lumen5 charges $99/month or $948/year to download 1080p video without its branding.

Duplicate videos in a snap

Once my first video was complete, I simply duplicated it to create the second and third explainer videos. I changed up the colors, assets, and text and was on my way in minutes. I also duplicated each video so I had widescreen and square versions of each. Square versions work best in feeds like Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn, while widescreen versions are best for YouTube, Vimeo, and your own website.

Make social media videos from scratch

After I created these first three videos from a template, I wanted to test how easy Animoto is when starting from scratch. Not surprisingly, it was super simple to make social media videos this way, too. In a little over an hour, I created the following video:

It wouldn’t have taken so long except I had some trouble getting my photo collage of the various channel logos to look the way I wanted it. Not to mention I’m infinitely picky, so I kept changing things.

There are limitations to the platform. When you make social media videos with Animoto, you don’t have a lot of control over the text; for instance, you can’t bold or italicize words. If you add a color filter, you have to add it to the entire video, not just one block (I would have liked to do this for certain blocks to increase the readability of the text). In addition, your uploaded assets are appended to a single project rather than to a centralized account library. That means that if you use your logo in every video or re-use photos or video clips, you’ll need to upload the files every time.

Still, I can’t argue with the quality of the end product. Especially at this price point. I wouldn’t make social media videos any other way.

The verdict

]I believe in the power of video. I wrote about why video is a crucial component of online marketing success. But video can be prohibitively expensive for many small business owners. With DIY software like Animoto, video becomes a much more attainable part of a marketing mix.

Templated solutions do have their limitations. But Animoto is a powerful tool that I recommend without hesitation.

Landing page optimization usually tackles content-related questions: Have I included the target keyword enough times? Is my call-to-action working? Which design layout performs better? Too often, however, advertisers jump to this phase before taking into account whether the structure of their website is ready for PPC platforms like Google Ads.

This article covers four critical questions you simply cannot overlook when optimizing your landing page. Start here before you address the content you want to test for your landing pages.

1. Is your site secure?

SSL stands for Secure Sockets Layer, a website encryption protocol. An SSL certificate provides secure communication between your website and an internet browser, making it more difficult for a hacker to tamper with traffic or spy on your site’s visitors. It’s especially important to have a valid SSL certificate if you ask customers to fill out forms or share personal information. But in truth, every website should have one.

You can tell whether your website uses secure encryption if your URL starts with http:// (not secure) or https:// (secure).

Why it’s important

In July 2018, Google Chrome began to mark all HTTP sites as not secure. This prominent “Not Secure” message likely causes higher bounce rates. Starting in October 2018, Chrome will go a step further by explicitly warning users about insecure sites with a prominent red icon.

How to fix it

If your website does not currently have an SSL certificate, you can obtain one from your website host. For instance, HostGator packages now include a free SSL certificate, as do hosting packages from Yahoo for Small Business.

Alternatively, you can obtain a free SSL certificate from Let’s Encrypt, a non-profit organization supported by corporate sponsors, grants, and individual donors.

2. Is your site mobile-friendly?

Since 2015, Google has used mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal. In 2016, it strengthened this signal, explaining that “Getting good, relevant answers when you search shouldn’t depend on what device you’re using.” This year, the search giant took it a step further with its mobile-first index.

Why it’s important

Without getting into the weeds about what all these changes mean, suffice it to say that if Google cares whether your site is mobile-friendly, then you should, too.

Use Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test to see whether your site makes the cut.

How to fix it

If your site is already built, you may need to work with your website designer to transition it to a mobile-friendly format. Make sure to choose a responsive design, which means your website automatically adapts to whatever device your visitors are using. If you don’t currently have a website designer, you can find a freelancer on sites like Fiverr or Upwork.

Does your site use content management software like WordPress, Magento, or Wix? If so, Google has created specific guides to help make your site mobile-friendly.

What if you’re starting from scratch? Most online website builders offer responsive website templates. For instance, using code WEBSITE 25, you can get 25% off a responsive Yahoo for Small Business website.

AMP, or Accelerated Mobile Pages, is another way to create lightning-fast mobile websites. AMP pages load more quickly than traditional HTML.

For WordPress users, you can easily create AMPs by installing AMP for WordPress. This free plugin is a collaboration between WordPress, Google, and others. You already have the AMP feature enabled if your site is a WordPress.com site, or you’ll see it already installed as a plugin if you use a WordPress.com account to sign into a WordPress.org self-hosted site. (What’s the difference?)

If you have AMPs, use them in Google Ads. Enter the AMP URL into the Mobile URL field of your ads or in the Mobile URL field of your keywords. (In WordPress, the AMP URL is your normal URL with /amp/ tacked on the end) This way, when a mobile user clicks your ad, Google will send them to your AMP landing page.

3. Does your site include a privacy policy?

As I explained in my post about Quality Score, Google values sites that are “transparent.” Google wants to make sure that its advertisers handle user data responsibly.

Why it’s important

In addition to an SSL certificate, one of the ways Google judges whether your site handles data responsibly is if your landing page links to your site’s privacy policy. This privacy policy should include any cookies you use (such as Google’s remarketing cookie) and describe how you handle any data you gather from your site’s visitors. It should also include how users may opt out of your use of cookies.

How to fix it

If your site doesn’t already have a privacy policy, use a free privacy policy generator, such as Shopify’s. If you advertise in Europe, make sure your privacy policy is GDPR-compliant. Then, make sure that any URL you use as a Google Ads landing page links to the privacy policy you’ve created.

4. Does your site load quickly?

Internet users are impatient. If your page takes longer than two seconds to load, most visitors will abandon it and find somewhere else to go.

Why it’s important

Pages with longer load time have higher bounce rates, lower average time on page, and lower conversions, all of which will negatively impact your Quality Score.

How to fix it

Measure your page load time with a tool like Google’s PageSpeed Insights, Pingdom, or Webpagetest. I especially like Google’s PageSpeed tool because it separates its analysis of your mobile and desktop sites.

Whatever tool you use, you will see suggestions that have to do with your website’s code. Therefore, you will likely need a professional developer to help with implementation. If you don’t have a developer on staff, you can find freelancers on sites like Upwork or Fiverr.

Moz offers this practical guide to improving site speed. Working with your developer, implement each of these suggestions.

If your site is built on WordPress (like mine), some of the suggestions can be handled simply by adding WordPress plugins. Here are two that I use:

• WP Fastest Cache for browser caching
• Smush for image compression

In addition, Cloudflare is a free CDN (content distribution network) that makes your site load faster by storing copies of your website across geographically diverse servers.

Bonus idea

One of my clients pointed out that on his website,

• using http:// instead of https:// adds 150 milliseconds of load time
• adding www. to the URL adds 900 milliseconds of load time, and
• leaving off the trailing slash ( / ) at the end of the URL adds 600 milliseconds of load time.

These fractions of seconds add up quickly! (or should I say slowly?)

As you input your landing page URLs into Google Ads, make sure to use your website’s best URL formatting. (Keep in mind, proper formatting for your website may be different than the example given. Your developer should be able to tell you your website’s proper URL structure).

Okay, done. Now what?

Once your website has an SSL certificate, is mobile-friendly, includes a privacy policy, and loads quickly, you are ready to test the content and design of your landing page.

Is Yelp advertising worth it? For many local business owners, Yelp is an essential marketing tool to connect with potential customers. A 2016 Nielsen study commissioned by Yelp shows that 74% of consumers searching online for a local business turn to a review site at least monthly. The consumers who used online review sites ranked Yelp as the most trusted, most influential, and most useful.

I am one of these consumers. While best known for restaurant reviews, Yelp has helped me personally discover my business accountant, my landscaper, and my moving company.

Should your business advertise on Yelp? I asked several business owners to share their experience to understand whether advertising on Yelp is worth it. Let’s delve into what’s good, what’s bad, what’s ugly about Yelp Ads.

What Yelp Ads look like

Advertising with Yelp vs. free Yelp listings

Any business owner can create or claim a listing on Yelp for free. A free business listing on Yelp enables the page owner to

• update your information, such as business hours, phone number, and website URL
• upload photos to your listing
• add categories and service offerings
• respond to reviews via direct message or public comment
• respond to requests for appointments or quotes
• create a Yelp Deal (similar to a Groupon voucher, shown) or check-in offer (example, “Check in on Yelp for a free soda”)
• access the Yelp for Business Owners dashboard or mobile app, which shows statistics such as pageviews of your Yelp listing, number of phone calls generated from your listing, and clicks to your website from your Yelp listing

In addition, Yelp offers paid page upgrades (called a Yelp Enhanced Profile) that enable you to

• add a call-to-action button on your listing (shown)
• remove competitor listings from your Yelp page
• create and customize a photo slideshow
• access Yelp customer support

Finally, Yelp offers a self-service pay-per-click (PPC) platform, by which you can

• create and manage PPC campaigns on Yelp
• customize your Yelp ads with photos and text (shown)

There’s almost no downside to claiming your free business listing (except for the solicitation, which we’ll discuss), so this article pertains specifically to Yelp’s paid offerings.

Free Yelp Ads: Yelp’s $300 advertising credit

Often, business owners experiment with Yelp upon being offered $300 in free Yelp Ads.

This offer may come from Yelp’s sales team, which has a reputation for being aggressive. Kathlena Rails, publicly known as The Allergy Chef and owner of Free and Friendly Foods bakery in San Bruno, CA, calls Yelp’s sales efforts “borderline harassment.” Still, she does occasionally use Yelp’s advertising platform, but only, she says, “when it [is] discounted or when they send an email with a promo code.”

The $300 of free Yelp Ads is a smart way to see whether the platform is right for your business. But if your intention is not to continue after the credit is exhausted, do not forget to cancel, or you will be charged.

Yelp Ads: the good, the bad, and the ugly

The good

Yelp Ads can be effective

Zach Hendrix, co-founder of GreenPal, says that his company has “tested Facebook Ads, Google AdWords [now called Google Ads], Pinterest, Twitter, and Instagram Ads. However, we have found that our best return on investment has been with our Yelp page sponsorships.”

As a self-funded startup, he says, “we have to be very cautious with where we allocate money for paid customer acquisition. We find the traffic we get from Yelp page ads converts 67% of the time into a paying customer, and we simply cannot top this on any other paid channels.”

Is Yelp advertising worth it? For GreenPal, absolutely. “Traffic we get from Yelp is solely people at the bottom of the purchase-making process,” Zach says. “They have read your reviews, they have read about your business, and they are qualified and ready to buy.”

Kathlena agrees, but only to some extent. “For the right type of business,” she says, “Yelp Ads are great. If you need a boost in local foot traffic, and your products cater to the Yelp user base, it’s fantastic.” She reported a dramatic increase in her bakery’s customers, especially those seeking vegan and gluten-free foods.

Yelp Ads is easy to manage

In addition, Kathlena says, “I found [the platform] to be rather easy. In a few clicks, the ad was live.”

You set your own daily budget

Like other PPC platforms, Yelp Ads enable you to control your budget. You can advertise on Yelp with as little as $5/day.

The bad

Yelp Ads can be expensive

Even though Kathlena reported a spike in her bakery’s foot traffic, “we don’t feel it’s worth it for us… Our cost of goods is quite high. For us to keep up with Yelp Ads, it would eat up most of our profits.” She recommends Yelp Ads only for companies with the profit margin to support it.

Yelp’s targeting options are limited

Earl White, co-founder of House Heroes LLC, experimented with Yelp in 2017. “I signed up for a yearly plan at $1,000 a month,” he says. “I was drawn in by the feature that my ads would show on competitor Yelp listings.”

Ultimately, however, Earl discontinued advertising on Yelp. He describes his business as a “fix and flip” company that targets property owners who want to sell. The problem with Yelp Ads, he says, is that “anyone searching about real estate services would see my advertisement and contact me — often about real estate services I don’t provide.”

“If your business has general services,” he says, “it’s probably not a problem, as a broad array of industry-related search terms can yield business.” However, he cautions, “if your business has a narrow focus, Yelp’s general approach to search terms may not be the right fit.”

Managing the effort takes time

Nick Leffler, owner of Exprance, has tested Yelp advertising for his own business, as well as for clients his agency manages. Is Yelp advertising worth it? For his own business, Nick says, “I received one paying customer that barely paid back the initial investment. With all the time involved, it ended up not being worth it.”

The ugly

Yelp’s reporting is questionable

Geoffrey Radcliffe, CEO of PostLaunch, manages online marketing for companies, often including Yelp Ads. He finds Yelp’s reporting to be inflated and unsubstantiated. Yelp’s analytics, he says, “can’t be validated by any other tracking software (Google Analytics or Host account analytics).”

He offers this example: “I have a dentist client that was paying almost $3K per month for Yelp Ads.” Yelp’s reporting showed 40-50 calls generated per month, “but the reports from the phone company couldn’t even validate this.” In addition, “Yelp was reporting 1,700-ish click-throughs to that client’s website,” he says, “but total traffic was less than 300 monthly.” 

Yelp’s sales team is aggressive, and its support team less than helpful

Business owners report numerous solicitation calls from Yelp’s sales team. Nick describes Yelp’s support as “extremely responsive when they’re trying to get you to spend money.” However, “After you are with them, then they become significantly harder to get a hold of and get answers.”

So, is Yelp advertising worth it?

Like so many answers in PPC, the best answer is “it depends.”

As the business owners interviewed here show, Yelp Ads can work but don’t always. In Nick’s experience with his agency clients, Yelp Ads “has worked well for some businesses, while others pay dearly and get little return.”

Is Yelp advertising worth it? The TLDR conclusion:

Yelp Ads may work if your business

• has an adequate budget to support it
• offers general vs. specialized services
• is willing to invest some time in managing the effort

Yelp Ads may not work if your business

• does not have the profit margin to afford it
• requires specific customer targeting rather than general search terms

The best way to know is to experiment for yourself. Claim your business page with Yelp and get $300 in free Yelp Ads, then see whether it’s a good fit.

This article contains some affiliate links. This means that I may make a small commission (at no extra cost to you). All opinions are always 100% mine and I don’t work with any product or company that I don’t use and love. 

Pay-per-click platforms like Google Ads (formerly Google AdWords) can be overwhelming. You can easily get lost in the numbers and graphs. But don’t let the analytical nature of PPC scare you off. This guide will explain in plain English what these eight PPC metrics are, how they are calculated, and what they mean for your campaigns.

Clicks

Clicks indicate the number of times a user clicked on your ad to visit your website. A PPC platform like Google Ads charges you a fee (see cost per click) each time this happens.

A high number of clicks may seem like a worthwhile goal, but it’s not necessarily a good thing. Read what I mean by that here.

Impressions

Impressions indicate how many times your ad was served.

Note that I said how many times your ad was served and not seen. An impression doesn’t necessarily mean a human user saw your ad. Your ad might be placed below the fold, meaning the user would have to scroll down the screen to see it. Even if he never scrolls, it still registers an impression. Read more about Average Position below.

Click-through Rate (CTR)

Click-through rate, abbreviated CTR, is the percentage of times your ad is clicked.

CTR is calculated by dividing the number of clicks by the number of impressions. So if your ad was served 100 times and 2 people clicked on it, your CTR would be 2%.

Average Position

Ad Position describes where your ad is displayed on the Search Engine Results Page (SERP), relative to the other ads.

The first ad displayed on the SERP is in position 1, the second ad at position 2, and so on. Lower positions may mean your ad only shows when a user clicks on the second or third page of Google results. Each time your ad is served, its position is averaged to calculate your Average Position.

It’s important to note that Ad Position is not absolute. Google research showed that if the SERP always looks the same, users’ eyes become trained to ignore the ads. In response, Google serves a dynamic layout that changes with each search. Sometimes the SERP shows only one ad at the top of the organic search results, with the other ads served below. Other times, two ads show up top, or maybe three. Sometimes it won’t display any ads on the top, only on the bottom. Suffice it to say that the closer your Average Position is to 1, the higher on the page your ads were served. A higher ad position will generally bring more clicks to your ad.

Cost Per Click (CPC)

The cost per click, or CPC, is the amount you pay when your ad is clicked. This price is determined by factors such as competition, relevance to the user’s search query, and your maximum CPC bid.

The maximum CPC bid (sometimes called max. CPC) is an amount you set as the highest you’re willing to pay for a click. Your actual CPC (meaning the final amount you pay for an individual click) may be less than your max. CPC bid. You have the option to choose manual bidding, where you set the maximum bid amounts, or automatic bidding, where Google sets the bid amounts for you to try to get you the most clicks within your budget.

Cost (Ad Spend)

Cost is how much you’ve spent on your ads. You might look at cost across your whole account (sometimes referred to as ad spend), in a campaign, or for an individual keyword. To calculate your cost, multiply your average CPC by the number of clicks.

Conversions

A conversion is an action a user takes after she has clicked on your ad. This action is defined by you using a tool called conversion tracking. Conversions might include an e-commerce sale, a newsletter subscription, a file or app download, or a phone call.

Cost per conversion

The cost per conversion is calculated by taking your cost and dividing it by the number of conversions.

Cost per conversion is an important PPC metric to ensure your campaigns are delivering a return on investment (ROI). However, remember that conversions are not always direct sales. Take into consideration how much a conversion might be worth to your business. When you set up conversion tracking, you have the option to assign a value to a conversion, such as collecting an email address.

PPC metrics: Just the beginning

These eight PPC metrics only scratch the surface of what you can analyze in your campaigns, but they are an important place to start.

As you examine your PPC metrics, try not to look at any single metric in isolation. Rather, take these eight insights together and piece together a fuller picture of how your campaigns are performing. For instance, you might see a high CTR and think that’s great. But if that CTR only brought your campaign a few clicks, you may need to re-evaluate.

Even the most seasoned writers can use a refresher now and again. Everyone believes they can write, but the real question is whether you can write well. Here are 6 quick copywriting tips to keep your writing sharp.

Copywriting Tips to Start Using Today

Watch out for repetitive redundancy

ATM machine. PIN number. And the worst: SEO optimization.

Remember that acronyms stand for things. ATM = automatic teller machine; therefore, when you write ATM machine, you’re really writing automatic teller machine machine. ATM will do.

A business is an it, not a they

In order to sound more friendly and approachable, companies often talk about themselves using the inclusive we. Watch a few commercials, and you’ll almost certainly hear, “At Company X, we believe…” I’ve certainly written that way about my own clients for years. It’s an effort to humanize that which isn’t human – a brand. But when referring to a business as an entity, use it, not they.

Get your decades in order

When you’re writing about decades, remember where to put your apostrophes. If you’re leaving off the first two digits of a four-digit era (ie, ’70s, ’00s) put an apostrophe at the beginning. But DON’T put an apostrophe before the s:

Incorrect: 1980’s, 90’s, 2000’s
Correct: 1980s, 1990s, 2000s or ’80s, ’90s, ’00s

You only use an apostrophe before an s to make it possessive, not to pluralize it.

The Dos and Don’ts of Dos and Don’ts

Too often, bloggers will write lists of “Do’s and Don’ts.” Unfortunately, only one of these words requires an apostrophe. Because don’t is a contraction of do not, the apostrophe stands in for the missing letter. But an apostrophe before an s makes is possessive, not plural (which is what we want). Therefore,

Incorrect: Do’s and Don’ts
Correct: Dos and Don’ts

Related: FAQs (not FAQ’s), Q&As (not Q&A’s), CTRs (not CTR’s)

Avoid hyperbole and fluff

Some words and phrases are meaningless, and they are usually added when writers are trying to meet a minimum word count requirement. Avoid these at all costs.

Examples: “There’s something for everyone.”
“… and everything in between.”
“You’ll love it.”
“The possibilities are endless.”
Instances of very and really
Adjectives like great, terrific, fabulous, epic

Here are some ideas on what to use instead.

Go easy on the exclamation points

As I shared before, writers sometimes try to infuse energy into their copy by overusing exclamation points rather than choosing words to convey passion about the business. This overuse can result in an overeager tone that sometimes borders on desperation. You want to create a voice that’s emotional but still professional.

A good rule of thumb is to make sure any exclamation points you do use are separated by at least 5 sentences. I mean it!

There are tons of ways our writing can improve (mine included). These 6 tips are merely a starting point. Got more to add? Comment below…

Finding someone to manage your company’s PPC is a daunting task. You’re apt to encounter slick sales pitches, a wide range of pricing and fees, or an endless sea of online taskers who say they can do the job. How do you navigate it all? In this article, I include seven questions you should ask companies or consultants you are considering for paid search management. I hope it helps you figure out how to choose a PPC agency for your business.

How to Choose a PPC Agency: 7 Questions to Ask as You Interview

Q1. What successes have you had?

To ensure that a PPC consultant or agency has a proven track record, ask for specific success stories. In this case, however, “specific” does NOT mean in your vertical. An insurance company, for example, does not need to find an agency with insurance experience.

What matters more is your company’s goals and online business model. If you’re a software-as-a-service, ask for subscription examples. E-commerce sites should seek online sales successes. Brick-and-mortar businesses should look for local business case studies. Content and video channels should ask for traffic growth reports.

Knowledge about your specific vertical is nice to have, but it can be learned over time. What’s more important is that your PPC agency brings the right experience for the online goal. I had a client that sells collectible gold coins. Do I know anything about gold coins? Not at the outset, no. But I do know how to market an e-commerce store. When you’re choosing a PPC agency, that’s more important. The client can teach me about gold coins over the course of the partnership (and he did), and I can bring my experience in e-commerce to him and his business.

Q2. How long have you been working with your clients? May I speak to them?

Longevity in client relationships speaks volumes about trust, reliability, and communication.

For high-volume PPC agencies, customer churn is built into the system. In a smaller company like mine, I prefer to build long-term partnerships, even if it means a shorter client roster. I’m proud to say that some of my clients have been with Charles Ave Marketing even before it was formally incorporated in 2013.

That being said, every relationship has to start somewhere. It’s okay if, for example, you ask for a customer success story (as in Question 1 above), and you hear that the client is a newer one. Value the agency’s honesty.

Definitely ask for customer references, and take the time to contact them. When you’re choosing a PPC agency, anyone that is hesitant to share references should be viewed with some suspicion. If no one will attest to how happy they are with the agency’s performance, you likely won’t be able to, either.

Q3. How do you determine your pricing?

Agencies rely on different pricing models. Some PPC agencies charge a percentage of your advertising fees. Some charge hourly rates or monthly retainer fees. Others might consider performance-based payments. Sometimes it’s a combination.

There’s no right or wrong answer, but the agency should be able to tell you how it arrives at its pricing.

For instance, at Charles Ave Marketing, I have never charged a percentage of fees. My reason is simple: I don’t work for Google; I work for you. Spending more isn’t always the best advice I can give. When I find savings, it doesn’t impact what I make. I can save you money so that optimizing your marketing budget becomes a win for both of us.

Even if an agency doesn’t charge a percentage of ad spend, hourly and monthly rates vary widely. Like any professional service, you’ll need to use your judgment to figure out what works best for your business. While I would like to use the trope about getting what you pay for, it only applies at the low end of the pricing spectrum. Higher fees don’t always translate to better service. The best way to know is to talk to the company’s references. See if they think whether the agency’s fees are worth it.

While fees are obviously an important consideration, this should not be the sole basis of how to choose a PPC agency. Think about whether this will be a partner that helps your business grow.

Q4. Who will be managing my account?

Buyer beware: some agencies lie.

I know this first-hand. In the past, agencies have asked me to run campaigns for their clients in a freelance capacity. Sometimes I had client interaction, sometimes I had none.

Without client interaction, an agency’s account manager liaises between you and the person creating and optimizing your campaigns. The client-facing manager acts more like a salesperson or an administrative assistant. He might only have a cursory grasp of PPC and can’t answer specific questions. This causes communication to break down between the client, account manager, and freelancer.

But direct freelancer-to-client communication has its perils, too. One agency owner told the client I was a full-time employee who joined the company several months ago. He issued me a company email address and asked me to go along with the lie. I protested. Any Google search of my name would reveal it wasn’t true. He brushed off my concerns.

During my first phone call with the client, she asked, “How do you like the company? What were you doing before this? What’s your title?” All reasonable questions to which I gave truthful answers.

She didn’t like the agency’s dishonesty. I didn’t like having to expose it.

Look, using freelance talent is fine. But the agency shouldn’t need to hide it. Sometimes a freelancer is a seasoned professional, like me. More often, a freelancer is someone the agency found a few days ago on Upwork or Fiverr. Whoever it may be, interview that person. Understand what you’re getting into.

No agency should have a reason to hide the people they’re trusting to manage your business and your money.

Q5. What budget do you recommend?

Before choosing a PPC agency, you might already have an estimate of what you can spend on paid search. Or you might have an amount in mind that you’ve spent in the past. Even so, you should ask the agency for its thoughts on your budget: whether the ad spend is adequate, too low, or might be more effectively spent on another channel.

Use this question as a gauge for how the agency might answer your questions in the future. It demonstrates the agency’s knowledge of PPC and how well the team is able to explain it in terms that you can understand and believe. If they say you’re not spending enough, listen to the explanation and see if it makes sense to you. Ask for recommendations on alternate channels where you might get more bang for the buck (maybe on Bing?). If they say the budget looks good, ask what you might expect in terms of traffic or sales (be wary, however: anyone who promises you hard numbers without saying we’ll have to run some live tests first is probably bullshitting you).

Some agencies have a minimum budget before they will engage with a client’s business. In my opinion, that’s fine, but a minimum spend isn’t a good justification for a proposed budget. The proposed budget needs to have reasoning behind it, and you should feel comfortable with those reasons.

For my tips on budgeting, read How Much Should I Spend on Google Ads?

Q6. What’s your communication style?

Finding a PPC management company is, in essence, searching for a business partner. You should understand what your interaction with the agency and its team members will be, and vice versa. A useful parameter to judge how to choose a PPC agency is whether your communication styles mesh well.

The agency should recommend a regular schedule for meetings and notifications. For example, with one of my local clients, I check in weekly by email to report the latest spend and revenue numbers and share status updates. We then meet in person on a monthly basis to go over the previous month’s performance, look at year-to-date numbers, and discuss ideas on a big-picture level.

Explain what your own communication expectations are. For example, are you okay with email, or would you prefer the ability to call or text your manager’s cell phone? Are you comfortable with video chat, or would you like someone to come to your office?

Having open lines of communication is important on both sides. Express your point of view and find a partner who can accommodate your preferences.

Q7. What percentage of time and resources goes to PPC vs other marketing channels?

This question is an off-shoot of Question 1, but here’s why it merits its own explanation:

Many agencies tout themselves as full-service, one-stop shops. This sounds wonderful in theory, but not always in practice.

Too often, SEO agencies try to manage PPC accounts unsuccessfully. While SEO and PPC are related, they are two different disciplines. You might be a masterful SEO mind, but that doesn’t mean you know the ins and outs of PPC. In my own case, I have advanced knowledge of PPC, but only a basic understanding of SEO. I’m not qualified to manage SEO campaigns myself.

SEO agencies sometimes approach me for an AdWords account audit because they don’t understand what they’re doing wrong in PPC. Once that happens, however, client money has already been wasted.

As you’re figuring out how to choose a PPC agency for your business, understand how the prospective agency’s expertise is divided between SEO, PPC, social, email, and any other channels. Some agencies really do have dedicated and knowledgeable teams in all aspects of online marketing. Most, however, rely on freelance and contract help in the less-represented areas. This is entirely fine, but again, transparency is everything. You should know if PPC is a core part of the business or if it’s just growing, and how.

After all, if your business is going to be another company’s experimental foray into the wide world of PPC, aren’t you entitled to know?

How to choose a PPC agency

When PPC is not your expertise, it can be intimidating. There are technical terms and jargon that you may not understand, and I’m sorry to say, but the industry is full of dishonest and/or incompetent players.

Therefore, it’s worth it to do some homework before making a commitment. Read information online about PPC so that you have some familiarity. Review the questions above. Talk to several agencies. Follow up with the references they provide. Kick the tires.

Yes, it’s a lot. But if you do it right, you’ll only need to do it once because the PPC agency you decide on will be a partner for months and years to come.

An editor is a luxury we copywriters don’t always have. That’s when writing apps can help point out mistakes we might not see in our writing. Listed below are some of my favorite writing apps and add-ons that I use regularly.

Hemingway

Hemingway offers a free online editor or a paid desktop app. It checks for passive voice, complicated sentences, and weakening phrases and qualifiers. The app assigns a grade level, readability score, and estimated total reading time.

Grammarly

Grammarly is a helpful Chrome extension. Whatever you’re writing online (be it your blog, a Facebook post, an email), Grammarly examines it for grammar, punctuation, proper sentence structure, and word choice. However, it does not check Google Docs inline.

I use the free version, but there are also paid Grammarly Premium subscriptions with additional features including a plagiarism checker.

Yoast SEO

Yoast SEO is a free WordPress plugin. It offers many SEO-related features, but in terms of writing, it does the following:

• Grades your writing on the Flesch Reading Ease test to help with readability. (Read another way, how easily scannable is your content?)
• Counts the percentage of sentences with transition words and phrases.
• Provides word count in the context of SEO. For instance, it looks at whether the number of words following a subhead is too long, or whether any individual paragraph is too long.
• Counts the percentage of sentences that contain more than 20 words, which can make reading more difficult.
• Counts the percentage of sentences that use passive voice and highlights them.

Sometimes Yoast will offer improvement suggestions that I consider but ultimately don’t take. For example, I think it’s fine for my blogs to score lower than recommended on the Flesch Reading Ease score. This score is mostly calculated on the length of sentences and the number of syllables per word. I know my audience can handle big words and long sentences. Even still, greater clarity is something we should always aim for in our writing.

Just Not Sorry

Stop tempering your emails in ways that undermine your leadership. With the Just Not Sorry Gmail extension, you’ll be warned about words and phrases that minimize confidence.

As founder Tami Reiss told Slate, too many women inadvertently discredit their own opinions. “We thought: What if we changed the environment? What if we pinged someone to say, ‘Hey, you’re doing this thing that you probably don’t want to do. The response is going to be unconscious to someone else, but it’s going to have a really big impact.’”

Beyond just and sorry, this writing app flags phrases like actually, I think, and Does this make sense? The extension is open-source to enable you to add more stop-words to flag as though they were spelling errors.

Do you have favorite writing apps? If so, feel free to share them with me! I’d love to know how you use them in your day-to-day work.

Stock photography is often contrived, confusing, or altogether nonsensical. (If you need examples, click here, here, and here). And free stock photos? Forget it.

That’s why I was excited to discover such an awesome resource for free stock photography. I don’t receive any sort of compensation for this review — I’m not sure how I could make money off a free stock photo site anyway. But when a site figures out how to combine free stock photos with zero embarrassment factor, I believe it deserves to be shared.

Pexels.com

Pexels offers easily searchable free stock photography. All photos fall under the Creative Commons Zero license, meaning that the pictures can be used for any legal purpose, including commercial. You may modify, copy, and distribute the photos. Attribution is not required.

Pexels also displays sponsored stock photography assets for purchase, including from sites like Storyblocks. I discussed Storyblocks in my recent roundup of cool video tools. Perhaps I should add Pexels Video to the list because it offers free stock video as well!

Quality controls

Every full-size, high-resolution photo on Pexels is hand-picked from photos uploaded by Pexels users or sourced from free image websites. The site hosts monthly photo submission contests that help grow the free stock photo library. For instance, at the time of publication, the current contests seek “everyday people” and “office spaces.” Previous contests include cat photos (with a prize of free cat food!), minimalist photos, and outdoor photos.

Contributing to the community

Once you’ve downloaded a free stock photo from Pexels, you’re encouraged to support the site and community in a number of ways. You can tweet a thank-you or follow the photographer’s social media channels, donate directly to the photographer’s PayPal account, link back to the photo, or click on any of the sponsored ads that appear.

How I’ve used Pexels’s free stock photos

I sourced the featured photo for this blog post from Pexels and then altered it with photo filters and type.

I also used Pexels for almost all the photography in my recently released book, 3 Expensive Google AdWords Mistakes (and How to Avoid Them).

Pexels is a wonderful resource – it’s intuitive, high-quality, and searchable. If you’re out there looking for free stock photos, be sure to try Pexels.com!