Time is gold; you can directly translate it into money by strategically spending it on campaigns and agency growth. But, as an agency owner, you'll be familiar with situations where undesired activities chew up all your time and leave you shocked to see your productivity at the EOD.

In this article, you'll learn to identify and eliminate all those wasteful activities that eat up your valuable & productive hours and hamper your growth and profitability.

Identifying Your Agency's Biggest Time Wasters

Agency owners often have to juggle managing their clients and the agency. It results in splitting their attention into multiple things, such as strategy making, client servicing, and day-to-day handling operations.

It can lead to them not being able to fully focus on either of these tasks. To resolve this, businesses should invest in dedicated teams to take care of the day-to-day tasks, focus on strategy, and interact with clients.

Some of the time wasters are as follows -

• Unexpected revisions on a project
• Content/idea rejection by the clients
• Delay in approvals
• Lack of clear goals
• Repetition of tasks
• Lack of proper tools
• Lack of proper processes
• Lack of automation
• Absence of time blocking
• Unnecessary meetings

You can control and eliminate many of these factors using automation and agency management tools such as the DashClicks. However, there are a few factors you have little or no control over, such as eccentric clients and delays in approvals from their end.

Unexpected rejections and revisions take up a lot of time and resources for the agency and are among the significant reasons for missed deadlines with other clients.

Not having a clear goal or strategy can lead to agencies spending more time on things that don't really matter in the long term.

Not setting boundaries when it comes to working hours is another common issue among agencies. It leads to burnout among employees and frustration among clients who expect timely responses from their agencies.

The 10 Wasters That Are Costing You Time and Money in Your Agency

Here are ten common time wasters that might cost your agency valuable time and money.

1. Working on the Wrong Tasks and Repetition of Tasks

Poor planning and delegation might lead to your team members working on the wrong tasks. So, tasks are repeated by different team members many times over. To work around this issue, you should use robust task management software. Using a project or task management system has the following advantages.

• Keep tasks in one place
• Save time and stay on schedule by delegating and tracking tasks
• Prioritize your work
• Improve collaboration
• Track team progress
• Put project work at your fingertips
• Set due dates and never miss deadlines

Pro Tip: DashClicks' dashboard and project management app enables you to manage and streamline tasks like never before. The platform also allows you to track your tasks and monitor project progress.

2. Tracking the Wrong Metrics

Sometimes your team members might be tracking the wrong metrics, leading to inaccurate results and a waste of time. It would help if you used data analytics and metrics tracking to prevent this thing from happening.

Data Analytics is extremely useful in digital marketing as it allows you to leverage the power of customer data to curate a better product & marketing strategy.

Digital analytics allows you to pinpoint the information that marketers would otherwise miss. It allows you to process massive packets of information sourced from multiple channels to quickly spot the patterns. It enables an agency to get actionable insights.

Data analytics will also help you improve your focus on customer experience and leverage social media marketing.

Image Source: TechTarget

3. Having No Systems in Place to Manage Projects

Do you have too many projects and insufficient time or resources to complete them? This is a common problem faced by many agencies. So what can you do to manage the situation?

A few things can help digital marketing agencies avoid this problem in the future. Learn how to prioritize projects and focus on tasks that will have the biggest impact. Give yourselves room for error and include more slack time in your project schedule for potential delays.

Set up systems to stay on track with your deadlines, like setting up reminders and alerts for critical tasks or even hiring someone to help you stay on top of your projects.

Pro Tip: DashClicks' project management app enables you to manage your projects by effectively setting up reminders and alerts and delegating tasks to team members. The white-label project management software also allows you to track your campaign's progress.

4. Working With Poor or Unreliable Resources

Working with poor or unreliable resources is always challenging, but there are a few ways to make the process easier. For example, if you're working with someone difficult to get a hold of, it's best to set clear expectations and deadlines. If you're working with someone unreliable, it's best to have them sign an agreement outlining what they will be responsible for and your expectations of them.

Pro Tip: If you are tired of working with virtual assistant services or freelancers, use DashClicks' white label fulfillment services and stay committed to your deadlines. This way, you can keep your clients happy and satisfied.

5. Improperly Managing Client Expectations and Requirements

Lack of communication is the biggest evil responsible for improper client expectations and requirements management.

Here are some tips to better manage client expectations and requirements -

• Set expectations from the outset
• Invest in good communication software
• Be transparent about processes
• Clearly define goals
• Create official records of the smallest deals
• Keep the client in the loop throughout the process
• Rely on the right tool to keep track of all the stages of a project
• Learn how to say no with dignity when necessary

Pro Tip: You can use DashClicks' Contacts App, a CRM tool for enhanced client communication. It allows you to inform your clients by sending them via SMS and emails about the latest project updates.

6. Lack of Proper Tools

Today's business environment is about using the latest tools, software, and platforms. It minimizes your team's workload and enables them to deliver results in a fraction of the time with a high degree of accuracy. Without these tools, you can hardly manage multiple campaigns and perform day-to-day operations such as conducting analytics and sending performance reports to your clients.

Pro Tip: DashClicks' white label platform offers numerous automation tools to make life easy for agency owners. These tools include a sales CRM tool like the Contacts app, instant report generation tools such as InstaReports, bulk website building tools such as InstaSites, and lead management software such as the Inbound app. Apart from that, you will also get project management software to manage your projects and apps like forms to manage your online forms.

Without such automation tools, your agency will heavily rely on time-consuming and tedious manual processes. For example, manual report generation alone can consume dozens of productive hours. On the flip side, you can generate reports in a few seconds with InstaReports.

7. Unnecessary Meetings

Tesla chief Elon Musk sees meetings as a timewaster. He once said in an email, "excessive meetings are the blight of big companies and almost always get worse over time."

He has clearly instructed his employees not to conduct frequent meetings unless it is highly urgent. So, big meetings are a big no-no in his companies, such as Tesla, SpaceX, Twitter, Neuralink, OpenAI, and Zip2.

8. Not Practicing Time-Blocking

Time-blocking, also known as time chunking, is a time management technique that is used by famous enterprises, business leaders, and innovators such as Elon Musk and Bill Gates to great success. It enables you to make the most of any amount of time.

The time-blocking technique involves working on one task at a time broadly. It allows you to acquire the flow state by entering deep focus. It's linked with massive productivity and enables you to complete tasks faster and easier.

Here are the steps to use time-blocking for maximum productivity -

Step 1: Identify the tasks that you need to accomplish

Step 2: Estimate the time required to complete each task

Step 3: Decide how much flexible time you can afford as per your schedule

Step 4: Review your plan

Step 5: Implement time-blocking using your favorite calendar app

9. Lack of Proper Processes

Business process management is directly linked with cost benefits and a high level of productivity. Well-defined and accurate processes allow you to communicate and apply consistent standards and practices within the business.

Proper business processes help you in many ways, some of which are as follows -

• Gather information to resolve issues and quickly reduce downtime
• Know what each team member needs to do
• Easily onboard new employees
• Comply with norms, standard practices, and certifications
• Improve product quality
• Ensure that everyone is on the same page
• Reduce risk & improve security
• Analyze and enhance tasks in a dynamic manner

10. Lack of Clear Goals

Do you know why projects fail miserably despite using the best processes and tools? The major reasons are the lack of direction and vague goals. It is, therefore, important to sit down with your client and discuss the objective. Sometimes, all a client wants is maximizing inbound leads, whereas an agency might be wasting time and precious resources on brand building through social media.

Setting and prioritizing your goals, therefore, becomes extremely crucial. Take time to communicate these goals to your team members so everybody is on the same page. Understanding the client's goals helps the team members accomplish projects.

Image Source: Hypercontext

Here are some of the disadvantages of having no goals -

• Your team lacks focus
• You live by the flow rather than control it
• You have confusing priorities
• Distractions might hit you

Final Words

Time is the most precious asset; unfortunately, we all have limited time at our disposal. As an agency, you only work a limited number of hours a week, and you are supposed to meet your business goals and increase the number of clients within that period. So, you can't afford any type of time wasters.

Go through the above tips to steer clear of time wasters and save your agency time with automated reporting tools, project management software, and utilizing white label fulfillment services.

Agency owners rejoice every time they win a new client. But, along with this victory comes huge responsibilities and loads of activities to perform.

To scale your agency, you should have time-saving processes in place that you can bank upon. Marketing report templates are a wonderful method to streamline your processes and day-to-day agency tasks.

These reports not only provide in-depth analysis and insights into the campaigns but also keep your clients happy and satisfied.

Why Are Marketing Report Templates So Crucial?

With increasing business, reporting demands also increase. There isn't much anyone can do about that.

If you go the old-school way, using manual spreadsheets or screenshots, it's impossible to serve all of your clients, especially when you're trying to scale.

The amount of time required to generate reports is simply mind-boggling and hiring a full-time employee to churn out reports is illogical.

A marketing template is a must for your agency because it helps you cut wasteful practices and makes your processes highly optimized and goal-oriented.

Image Source: Databox

Here are some of the benefits a marketing report template offers.

1. Consistency and Standardization

Standardized reports look professional and cast a good impression of your agency. After all, you can't really send SEO reports where traffic analysis is on the first page one month and on the fourth the next.

Clarity and consistency are the keys when it comes to generating marketing reports. It helps in client retention.

Respect your client's time, and don't make them hunt through a pile of disarrayed information to find the most desired metrics. Help them improve their campaigns, increase revenue, and boost customer satisfaction through clear and concise reports.

Templates are the best way to present data in a visually appealing format. It can be customized and used by any individual or stakeholder. You can easily identify historical trends and build trust using marketing report templates.

2. Save Time

The biggest advantage of using marketing templates is that they save plenty of time for you. Digital marketing comprises SEO, PPC, Social Media, and email marketing campaigns, and tracking all the key metrics is time-consuming but pivotal to your success.  Marketing templates and a dashboard can help you track your campaigns egregiously while saving you tons of time. Reports can vary based on campaign goals, and you can tweak your templates to generate such reports. Prebuilt templates can be re-used when you want to scale.  Agency Tip: You can use the DashClicks InstaReports App, a marketing reporting software to generate professional-grade digital marketing reports. It is an automation tool that can fetch analytics data from numerous third-party platforms and Google Analytics. You can create reports in seconds using this app.

3. Scale With More Certainty

During onboarding and afterward, you have a long list of tasks on your to-do list. The automation tools and prebuilt marketing templates help you scale with maximum certainty. InstaReports, a client reporting tool, is an effortless way to print reports in a few seconds.

Furthermore, these reports are error-free compared to manual reports. You need to generate five times more reports when you grow from a mid-sized agency to a large agency. You can't do this unless you have a template-based system and a robust automation tool to help you.

In short, marketing report templates help you better visualize data and generate meaningful numbers.

Marketing Report Templates Your Agency Must Know

Before you decide how to generate the marketing report to scale,Ā let's discuss the most popular report templates you should be aware of. Consolidate your digital marketing reports with these templates to make your clients understand the campaigns better.

1. General Marketing Report Template

When you're using multi-marketing channels and want to present a consolidated report to explain the impact of your efforts on your client, a general marketing report template is the best solution. It provides analytical snapshots of your campaigns - all in one place.

A general marketing report becomes crucial when you need to generate integrated campaigns and a dozen reports, which can be frustrating for you and your client.

Condensed data helps the decision-makers compare the performance of different channels and campaigns and make the most optimal marketing strategy.

A general marketing report contains the following:

 
• Your client’s business goals and how to achieve them using different strategies
• Goal tracking
• Paid vs. organic leads
• The most relevant metrics and KPIs
• Conversion rate and revenue generated
• Campaign snapshots from various campaigns such as email marketing, PPC, and social media
• Useful insights
• Recommendations based on the insights, including the campaigns that can boost results but aren’t being used currently
• Services you can upsell using the above insights

Agency Tip: Reports can be arduous and overwhelming for the clients. So, always include a report summary. It should consist of the key takeaways for quick understanding.

2. Digital Marketing Report Template

A digital marketing report looks like a general marketing report, but it mainly focuses on online marketing channels. It includes granular details from your SEO, PPC, social media, email marketing, Quora marketing, video advertising, influencer marketing, and so forth.

A digital marketing report contains the following:

• Goal tracking

• Social media Analytics
• Facebook Ads
• Instagram Analytics
• Twitter Analytics
• LinkedIn Ads

• SEO metrics
• Website Traffic
• Page views
• Traffic metrics by channel and device
• Bounce rate

• Social media Metrics
• Engagement metrics
• Follower growth
• Conversions

• PPC metrics
• Click-through and conversion rates
• Cost per lead or cost per conversion of paid channels (Google Ads, Bing Ads, etc.)
• Revenue by channel

Agency Tip: Agency owners should know the difference between KPIs and metrics. To prevent yourself from using vanity metrics, always analyze your client's goals and the metrics that can best measure your performance against these goals.

3. SEO Marketing Report Template

To evaluate your organic search strategy, you should use the SEO marketing report template. It contains all the vital details of your client's website's performance on search engines.

In an SEO marketing report, you can include the following:

 
• Engineered and acquired backlinks
• Organic traffic metrics gathered from Google Analytics
• Organic conversions metrics such as CTR (clickthrough rates) on blog posts
• Keyword rankings
• Page load speed
• Traffic metrics by channel and device
• Engagement metrics (e.g., bounce rate, time on site, pages per visit)

4. PPC Marketing Report Template

You would like to know the ROI for every dollar you spend on paid ads. It makes tracking your PPC performance essential. A PPC marketing template, therefore, should include the following:

 
• Conversion rate
• Cost per click (CPC)
• Cost per lead or cost per conversion of paid ads
• Clickthrough rate (CTR)
• Return on ad spend (ROAS)
• Quality score
• Impression share

5. Web Analytics Report Template

If you run multiple web 2.0 campaigns for your client, then a marketing analytics software is the way to go. It may include website development, SEO and paid Google campaigns and content marketing, etc.

Like the templates discussed above, web analytics templates also include the most relevant metrics to track performance against your client's strategic goals. Compare traffic sources and paid vs. organic performance and see the full picture in one place.

6. Social Media Report Template

Social media is the best way to create awareness, nurture your leads and convert them in the B2C and B2B space. Social media marketing goes beyond posting videos and pictures. It involves finding what resonates with your audience the most. So, tracking your social media campaigns across different platforms through relevant metrics becomes essential in today's business environment.

You can include the following metrics in a social media report template.

 
• Reach and impressions
• Amplification rate
• Audience growth rate
• Clickthrough rate (CTR)
• Engagement rate
• Video views
• Virality rate
• Conversion rate
• Website traffic from social channels

7. Email Marketing Report Template

Email marketing is quite effective and it's important to track your email marketing campaigns effectively. Using an email marketing report template will tell you where you need to improve and make your campaign even more engaging and conversion oriented.

You can include the following metrics in your email marketing report template.

 
• Open rate
• Conversion Rate
• Click-through rate and top-clicked links
• Email Sharing/Forwarding Rate
• Subscribe and unsubscribe rates (including any spam reports)
• Open rates by region (especially if your client’s mailing list has a high number of subscribers in different geographical areas)
• Delivery rate
• Bounce rate
• List Growth Rate
• Overall ROI
• Session duration

8. Local SEO Report Template

Local businesses, such as restaurants, toy shops, spas, cafes, boutiques, salons, pet shops, bakeries, and dentists, can benefit heavily from local marketing. A local marketing report template contains the key local insights to boost your business's search visibility. It also helps you attract more leads to increase footfall.

You can include the following metrics in your local marketing report template.

 
• Google Business Profile (GMB) insights, i.e., number of searches, calls made, clicks, reviews, and map views
• Google local ranking
• Customer acquisition costs
• Web chat conversion rates
• Traffic & lead sources
• Best performing location
• Sessions by geographic location
• Keyword rankings for local SEO-related terms

Final Words

The ultimate objective of generating reports is to keep the clients happy and informed about the direction and progress of your marketing efforts. Since client retention is central to your agency's growth, you can't afford to generate lousy reports. Apart from the quality, the frequency of the reports is also crucial to your success. Automation is the only answer to creating multiple reports in a fraction of the time it takes to generate them manually. Using the best marketing report templates will give you an edge over your competition and boost your branding.

With robust automation tools like DashClicks' InstaReports app, generating professional template-based reports is a walk in the park. Use our white-labeled reports to showcase your performance, efficiency, and professionalism. All it takes to generate a professional report is a single click.

Digital marketing is as dynamic as it gets. Devices, platforms, popular social media channels, technology, and social trends keep changing and evolving. Furthermore, it’s about online visibility and presence, attracting a target audience, generating leads, and converting your prospects into paying customers.

To survive in this continuously evolving marketplace and stay relevant, businesses must keep themselves abreast of current trends and practices. That’s why there is a surging demand for digital marketing coaching programs. Many agencies are offering mini-courses, webinars, and boot camps to fill this gap in the market.

The education and training programs help you drive these four major benefits

• Generate a new revenue stream
• Build authority
• Build a brand
• Increase social exposure and online visibility

Benefits of Participating as a Speaker in Your Industry Events

When you attend highly advertised and hyped industry meetings, seminars, webinars, podcasts, and interviews, you gain trust as an expert and elevate your agency’s branding. Moreover, as people start mentioning you on different forums and social channels, you also increase your online visibility, earning a lot of free backlinks en route.

Pro Tips:

• Look for opportunities to participate as a speaker at business conferences, industry meetups, and seminars.
• Pitch to event organizers and get into the circuit.
• Prepare for your speech, raise burning issues, and offer interesting solutions.

Speaking opportunities and engagements of this sort will skyrocket your agency business. It also helps in business expansion, conversion, and retention as you position your agency as a credible service provider.

Supercharge Your Coaching Program With DashClicks

If you want to supercharge your coaching program, here is some good news. You can now leverage the DashClicks ecosystem in your core coaching offerings. It will help you offer a ton of value to your clients!

Another advantage of bundling your coaching program in the DashClicks white-label platform is that it provides a perfect combination to your clients – that of learning and leveraging the various tools to further their business. If you provide standalone coaching like other coaches, this immense value might be missing.

With state-of-the-art marketing and automation softwares, your clients will have the best training experience to help them boost their business to the next level. Here are a few tips to supercharge your coaching program with the DashClicks platform.

1. Bring the Ideal Sales Process to Life

Sales is about familiarity with the pipelines, unique stages in the funnel, the right messaging, and automated tasks. If you can help your clients visualize the sales process and model it in real life with the help of a robust deals management system, they will easily become sales superstars.

2. Help Clients Achieve Their Business Goals

Sales have always been a challenge for businesses. It’s also a double-edged sword, as no business entity can survive without sales.

DashClicks has developed a platform to help entrepreneurs and agency owners earn additional income and attract lifetime customers.

The white-label platform is easy to use and can make your business goals a reality with smooth processes, transparent and quick sales pipelines, and contact management abilities.

3. Optimize Workflow and Task Management

As an agency owner, you may have to create several subaccounts. Often, it becomes difficult to track them all and stay up-to-date with their performance.

DashClicks white label agency software allows you to automate numerous tasks and send out notifications per your schedule. It helps streamline workflow and accomplish tasks on time.

4. Build Employee Accountability

DashClicks platform also allows you to track performance at the individual employee level. It generates accountability among your staffers and thereby improves the overall performance of your team.

Tracking employee performance is integral to developing a robust employee management strategy. A successful sales process involves rapidly managing sales rep assignments and optimizing operations, as you constantly need to tweak the process to ensure success. As a planner and sales supervisor, your job is to instantly notify the sales reps of new leads.

A near-perfect analytics software helps you identify opportunities for improvement and capitalize on recent accomplishments to move forward with full momentum.

5. Offer Coaching Programs

Coaching has become indispensable for the transformation and success of all businesses, including startups and agency businesses. Besides that, you can also offer your clients the necessary tools to help them implement your instructions.

6. Monitor, Measure, & Improve With Analytics

Constant measurement and assessment are vital to improvement. Using the DashClicks ecosystem, you can provide clients with an all-in-one solution compatible with third-party analytics software. DashClicks provides 65+ integrations that make working with third-party analytics software a breeze.

DashClicks' Features

Here are some of the features the DashClicks agency software offers. They will help you understand how the platform works.

1. A White Label Platform

We help agencies increase their revenue with our white-label platform. This platform allows you to automatically generate sub-accounts for every new sign-up so they can get full access to the platform. It also helps you generate additional income.

2. Business Management Solutions

DashClicks' white label platform comes with many useful applications that offer powerful business management solutions. For example, the Analytics App offers you real-time analytics and campaign tracking.

Website development is a time-consuming and tiring process that includes a lot of back and forth with the developers. InstaSites App enables you to build niche websites in bulk, that too in seconds. These websites usually comprise 30+ pages and are content-ready. So, the tool saves you a lot of hard work and hassle.

Projects App helps you manage your projects. It provides you a bird's eye view of all the campaigns you run in a single dashboard.

DashClicks has designed each application to help businesses improve performance, manage tasks, decrease churn, and increase sales. So you can provide your clients with the tools they need to take their business to the next level.

3. Services

The DashClicks ecosystem is known chiefly for its white-labeled marketing solutions. You can resell our digital marketing services, all under your own brand.

4. Our Team

The DashClicks ecosystem comprises a large fulfillment team to help you scale quickly and efficiently. Besides that, it also comes with a dedicated support team. The support content (both text and videos) is immensely useful for beginners.

5. Veteran Marketing Experts

DashClicks' marketing team has some renowned veteran marketing experts who have over a decade of experience helping hundreds of industries. These experts ensure your success as an agency and startup when you're hardly familiar with the nitty-gritty of digital marketing.

6. Our Process

We at DashClicks have simplified delivery protocols to do the heavy lifting, so that you, the user, never have to lift a finger. Just let us know what you are looking for, and we'll deliver it.

DashClicks Education

DashClicks offers digital marketing education through its blog and YouTube channel.

The idea is to help agency owners succeed in this challenging and shifting marketplace. The blog section on the DashClicks website and DashClicks' YouTube channel provide "no-nonsense" digital marketing education with valuable tips for you to succeed as an agency.

The training videos guide you about what works and what doesn't and are as entertaining as they are educational. They simplify the complicated stuff without making you feel overwhelmed with too much information at once.

You can also refer to DashClicks' Facebook page for valuable tips and videos by experts like Chad Kodary, CEO, DashClicks.

DashElite Coaching Program

DashElite is an exclusive coaching program for serious entrepreneurs and agency owners. It's a paid program that includes access to the DashClicks software, personalized support, live weekly training, and much more.

Final Words

With numerous software applications, personalized attention, fulfillment teams, and a group of mentors and experts to support you, DashClicks offers an ideal ecosystem to supercharge your coaching program. Make DashClicks your partner in your coaching business and reap the unmatched rewards the education and training industry provides.

Google My Business (GMB) is a Google tool that lets you manage as well as improve your business profile on Google. It even utilizes the widespread adoption of Google Maps by people when deciding to use a local product or service.

In a bid to position Google My Business as the ideal tool for local businesses wanting to reach more customers online, Google has added multiple new features to it. The move will help simplify the way people access their business listing on the search engine. Another significant notable change was the renaming of Google My Business it is now called “Google Business Profile.”

Given how subtle Google is about the changes to its platform, it’s likely that you, as a business owner, may still be unaware of the latest features of Google Business Profile. Keeping track of the updates of this free tool is essential to growing your business manifold. In this post, we’ll discuss what has changed in 2022 when it comes to this powerful tool so that you can continue reaching more customers and set your business up for success. Let’s begin:

What Is the Purpose of Google My Business?

Today, countless people rely on Google to find products and services. A GMB profile provides most companies with the opportunity to list detailed and specific business information on Google to get increased visibility on it.

Here’s a closer look at the other important benefits of Google My Business:

• Boosts Credibility: When a business appears on a search engine, people perceive it as a credible brand.
• Business Growth: As more people notice you online, your customers increase, and you, in turn, generate more business.
• Know Your Audience Better: With the help of Google Business Profile, you are able to profoundly understand your target audience.

The Changes to Look Out For

Let’s discuss the latest Google My Business updates and changes you need to know to stay ahead in the game. Let’s begin:

1. Google My Business Now Has a New Name

We have already discussed the name change Google My Business is known as “Google Business Profile” now. It was less of a surprise to many people, as GMB help documents started using “profile” instead of “listing” a while ago.

2. The GMB App Will Retire

In order to encourage business managers to access their profiles through an upgraded experience on “Google Maps” or “Google Search,” Google has decided to retire the GMB app this year. All you would need to do now is simply type in a search for your business name and click on the profile that shows up.

The Changes to Look Out For

Let’s discuss the latest Google My Business updates and changes you need to know to stay ahead in the game. Let’s begin:

1. Google My Business Now Has a New Name

We have already discussed the name change Google My Business is known as “Google Business Profile” now. It was less of a surprise to many people, as GMB help documents started using “profile” instead of “listing” a while ago.

2. The GMB App Will Retire

In order to encourage business managers to access their profiles through an upgraded experience on “Google Maps” or “Google Search,” Google has decided to retire the GMB app this year. All you would need to do now is simply type in a search for your business name and click on the profile that shows up.

Note: You need to follow a separate process in case you are already logged in. In this case, you just need to type the phrase “my business” and then click on the profile that appears.

3. You Can Claim and Verify Your Listing Directly on Maps and Search

Google announced this update because it wanted small businesses to manage their listings directly through Map or Search results. Owing to this update, you can directly verify your listing or sort other issues on your profile in Google search, along with editing your information.

Google has also communicated that a person claiming or creating a listing on Google can finish their setup directly on Maps and Search. They will also be able to see if their profile is publicly visible.

Apart from this, Google has even made certain metrics associated with your listing available for easy access in Search results, which include:

• Analytics and insights
• Business information update options
• Post options
• Latest reviews and star ratings

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4. Update Regarding GMB Web Portal

Another change you need to know is that the GMB web portal will transition to primarily support larger businesses with multiple locations. Google will offer more detail on this in the coming months, so we all would just have to wait it out.

5. Access to Enhanced Messaging Options

You may already know that business owners can chat with customers through Google Maps. But now, Google Search has this feature as well. Yes, you read it right! Business owners can view and reply to messages directly from their listing.

How to Optimize Your Business Profile Through Google My Business?

Here's a complete Google My Business optimization checklist that you can follow:

A. Fill Out Every Section: Ensure you include all vital information about your business like the company name, website, address, working hours, and phone numbers.

‍B. Add Your Business Description: Summarize your business in 2 lines. Write what your business is about so that a potential customer understands what your business stands for.‍

C. Set Your Business Category: Remember, categories describe your business and not what it sells or does. Select a primary category that describes your business in the best possible way.

‍D. Add Relevant, High-Quality Images: Include photos that will appeal to your potential customers.

‍E. Answer Questions: Sometimes, people may not get answers from your listing. Therefore, they would want to ask you questions. Google provides a feature where the searcher can ask questions related to businesses. Staying proactive in answering these questions is highly important. After all, you would want only accurate information about your business to be present on Google, wouldn't you? And responding to the searcher's question will also leave a positive impression.

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Keeping Your Listing Up-To-Date in 2023

Here's what you need to keep in mind to fully leverage Google Business Profile for your business:

1. Google Business Profile Categories

To help businesses represent their offerings and business in their listings, Google provides a plethora of categories for them to choose from. Although you have the option to select a number of categories for your business, the primary category you select should be a precise and clear reflection of your business. Selecting the correct primary category is also critical because it dictates which other listing options you get. For instance, if you choose “restaurants”, you will also get the listing option “menu options.”

We suggest that you stay abreast with the latest categories that Google adds every now and then to keep your listing up-to-date.

2. Google Business Profile Attributes

Another element we recommend you monitor for any updates is Google Business Profile attributes. Attributes have gained prominence in recent months to provide users a quick idea of what they can expect from a business, regardless of the kind of services or products they offer. You can also think of it as a convenient way to share your business offering and what makes you stand out. The attributes available to you are based on your primary business category.

To better understand attributes, let's consider the relatively new attribute category ā Google's Health & Safety attributes for instance. It provides an idea about the measures being taken for the health of customers by a business in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.

All said and done, it's easy to see how tracking any update to this element can prove to be immensely helpful. The at-a-glance information it provides about a business can make or break a deal.

DashClick's Reputation App

DashClicks' Reputation app helps you manage your reviews across multiple sources from a single dashboard.

The good news is, you can integrate your Google My Business reviews into the Reputation app.

Here are the steps to do the same:

1. Sign up for the DashClicks platform.

2. Open the app drawer on the top right corner in your DashClicks Dashboard and click on the Reputation App.

3. Once the app opens, select the + icon next to the Source filter. Or, you can choose the same icon present in the top-right corner of the app.

4. From the list of sources, choose Google My Business. Select Continue.

5. A login modal will show up in a secondary tab (make sure your AdBlocker is disabled). Log into the account that controls the GMB page and allow permission to continue.

6. Next, choose “Location.” And you are all done!

DashClicks' White Label Listing Services

If you are a digital marketing agency, you should sign up to DashClicks' white label local listing management services to create local awareness for your clients.

With these services, you are able to syndicate your clients' business location to over 70+ local directory listings. You can also integrate Google My Business listing into the DashClicks' platform.

Note: DashClicks' Listings Manager is completely self-serviceable. There is no onboarding required!

The Bottom Line

Keeping listings active and up-to-date is important to dominate your target local search results and draw in new customers. Needless to say, Google My Business plays a critical part in increasing local ranking of any business. But another thing that is just as important is ā tracking every feature and update that's related to Google My Business. It will help you fully utilize the potential of this effective digital marketing tool and pave your way towards successful business growth.

In this digital age, you ABSOLUTELY need a mobile-friendly website for your business.

Why?

As you read this post, your potential customers may be searching for your business on their mobile devices.

A mobile-friendly website means a site that's created and optimized for smartphones and tablets.

There are even stats that point towards the importance of a mobile-friendly website:

• 55.4% of web users use mobile devices to purchase online.
• Moreover, 61% of users will never return to a site that isn’t mobile-friendly.

The number of global mobile users is also expected to grow with each passing year.

All of this points to one thing: the need to have a mobile-friendly website in order to offer the best user experience to mobile users visiting your site. It plays a crucial role in helping them decide whether or not they should purchase from you.

In this post, we'll discuss all the important things you need to know about mobile website design, the process in which you take steps to optimize the web experience for mobile users. Here's what you should keep in mind when creating a mobile-friendly website.

1. The Text Should Be Large Enough to Read

This is one of those mobile website design tips that may seem obvious, but deserves a mention because it plays a huge role in making your website mobile-friendly.

Your mobile site must have text that's large enough to read comfortably. The users should never have to scroll left/right or zoom in to read something.

Check this example where the text shown on the site perfectly fits the screen size of a mobile:

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2. Use Large Buttons

Your business' mobile site needs to have buttons large enough for users to tap on. They should never have to zoom in while tapping on the buttons.

Note: Never place hyperlinks too close together. This is because a user attempting to click on one link may end up clicking on another.

3. Go for a Simplistic Design

One of the best mobile website design tips to follow is to go for a simple and clean design. As you only have a few seconds to convey information about your business when a user visits your site on mobile, you need to opt for a simplistic design.

Tip: Too much copy, graphics, and videos can hamper the loading speed of your site when a mobile user visits it. So, an uncomplicated design with a focused copy is the way to go.

4. Think With Your Thumb

Ensure your mobile website is such that a user is easily able to navigate your site with a single thumb (or index finger). They shouldn't feel the need to pinch to zoom or use any extra fingers. This way, you know you have designed a site that users can easily use on their mobile devices, on the go.

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5. Create Attention-Grabbing Calls-to-Action (CTAs)

A CTA is a banner, an image, or simply a piece of text, that prompts users to take a specific action. For instance, Your CTA can tell users to learn more about an offer, sign up to your mailing list, or buy a product.

Now, you need to create a CTA for your mobile site that catches the eye of the user. Otherwise, it would defeat the entire purpose of placing the CTA.

But how to design an eye-catching CTA for such a limited screen space?

An easy tip would be to place your CTA above the fold where it's easily visible to the user. They would not have to scroll down in order to see it.

6. Create Simple Forms

Users almost never face a hard time filling a large form on a computer. This is because using a keyboard to enter information in a large form that's already displayed on a big desktop screen is extremely easy. But, on mobile devices, forms need to be shorter for the user to easily fill them. These forms also need to have large buttons and text fields for the user to comfortably fill the form.

Here are some best practices you can follow to offer a smooth form-filling experience to the visitors on your mobile website:

• Ask only for the first name and email address of a visitor if you want them to sign up to your mailing list.
• If you need to include more than two fields in your form, ensure you make them easy and quick to answer.

Tip: Use DashClicks' Forms app to create user-friendly forms for any kind of data collection.

7. Make It Easy for Users to Contact You

If a customer searches for your contact details, chances are they might be facing some kind of an issue or question. This means, they may already be somewhat frustrated or confused. So, ensure you make it extremely easy for users to get in touch with you while designing a mobile-friendly site.

Here's what you can do:

Place a chat icon at the bottom-right. Or, if you can't offer this, provide a contact form in a Contact link that a user can find in your menu. You can also link to a Facebook chatbot if you aren't able to go for any of these options.

8. Provide an Intuitive, Simple Search Feature

Your site's search feature is relatively more important to mobile users. To make it seamless for mobile users to carry out a search, make sure you put in place an intuitive, simple search feature. For this, ensure you position it front-and-center for your users to quickly spot it. This is one of the most important mobile website design tips to follow for providing a great user experience to visitors on your mobile site.

9. Use Simple Menus

Desktop website menus have plenty of space. They can take up a complete bar at the screen's top. And the good thing is that it never hurts the user experience. But when it comes to smartphones, you just don't have that much space.

But then how to design menus for mobile sites?

We recommend that you use simple menus that show your website's overview. You can then add the search feature, filters, and categories to help users find what they are searching for.

You can even use the hamburger symbol that's used in the example below:

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This symbol comprises two or three horizontal lines, signaling that a menu is present. This menu can then show large buttons and text upon opening.

How Do You Know if a Website Is Mobile-Friendly?

If you are wondering whether your existing website is mobile-friendly, you can run a test to know for sure.

To do so, we recommend that you use Google's mobile-friendly test tool. All you need to do to use the tool is input your website link and click Test URL.

About DashClicks' Sites App

If you wish to build an attractive, mobile-friendly site for your agency, you can use DashClicks' Sites app. The website builder software lets you access different site views including mobile, desktop, and tablet at all times. This will help you provide a quality UX to your potential customers, regardless of the device they use.

Here are some more features of the Sites app:

• Select the template of your choice and get your new custom site built within a matter of seconds.
• You can use the app to create, manage, and optimize your site, no tech experience required.
• You can access exhaustive website analytics to see the stats of your site and know how it is performing.
• Sites include hosting that is done on AWS and an SSL certificate to ensure your site is protected.

Wrapping It Up

A mobile-friendly site is created to work well both on tablets and smartphones. From creating eye-catching CTAs to using text that fits perfectly on the small screen of a mobile, there are many mobile website design tips you can follow. Another way to deliver a sound user experience is to create a mobile app for your business. AppMySite's mobile app maker enables you to build an app in minutes without writing a single line of code.

Now that you know what a mobile-friendly website is and how to create one, you can begin building your site with confidence knowing that you will provide only the best experience to your potential buyers if they visit your mobile site. Good luck!

Today, most successful businesses know that collecting information about leads, their needs, and preferences hold importance in developing and growing a database. Lead generation forms enable you to effectively collect this information. There are also a host of other benefits of using a lead generation form. For instance, the data you collect through these forms plays a vital role in improving your services and products. It helps serve your potential customers better.

All in all, you can think of a lead generation form as a vital cog in the wheel of any modern-day business.

In this post, we’ll discuss in detail why you need to include a lead generation form on your website. We’ll also learn about how such a form works, its types, and what makes a good lead generation form (with examples). Let’s dive right in:

What is a Lead Generation Form?

A lead generation form is a set of fields used to collect and capture the contact details and other crucial information of your site visitors. But why collect such data? To convert your site visitors into potential customers.

You need to build lead generation forms that have a simple design and are easily accessible and appealing. Otherwise, visitors won’t be convinced to submit their information.

Note: As per Hubspot, organizations get an average of 470,000 website visitors,1,800 leads, and 300 new customers every month. This means you require a lot of form submissions to get leads.

A good recommendation of a form building software to create simple, visually-appealing, user-friendly lead generation forms is DashClicks’ Forms app. This app features an extremely easy-to-use interface to help you quickly build forms. It also offers one organized view of all your forms and submissions for you to review and take action on.

Why Include a Lead Generation Form on Your Website?

Competition in your industry is getting fiercer by the second. And because of this, you need to generate more leads and connect with a wider audience for your business.

When you include an effective lead generation form on your site:

• It generates as many leads as it can.
• Captures sufficient data about each of your leads, enough for you to make a decision about whether or not you need to pursue them.

Tip: To build an effective lead generation form, you need to keep in mind the following:

• Identify and ask for the most important data you require from your leads.
• Make it as easy as possible for your lead to provide this information.

The best thing about including a lead generation form on your website is that you gain high-quality leads from people that are more likely to purchase from you either at a sooner or a later stage.

How Does a Lead Generation Form Work?

Here's how a lead generation form works ā

You need to provide an incentive to your site visitors, which will entice them to opt in and offer their contact details.

Examples of some common types of incentives include:

• Updates on future events and sales.
• Subscription to a newsletter.
• A discount on purchases.
• Downloadable eBook, white paper, etc.

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The data you collect in exchange for the incentive you offer can go into your marketing platform or CRM. Then, you can make it a part of your digital marketing strategy planning. Awesome, isn't it?

Types of Lead Generation Forms

Lead generation forms come in a variety of types. The most common ones you need to know are:

1. Floating Bar Form

The floating bar lead generation form finds a permanent position at the bottom or the top of a webpage and is static even when site visitors continue to scroll.

Such forms are simple in nature and possess only 1-2 fields. These forms are ideal for getting email addresses of high-quality leads.

2. Modal Form

A modal form is one of the types of lead generation forms that you can think of as a pop-up lead generation tool. When a visitor browses a page, it appears after a short delay. It entices them to offer their details in exchange for an incentive.

The incentive can be 20% off on the first purchase after the visitor enters their email address.

Chances are, you may have already come across such a form when you visited a website. When a modal form appears, you need to enter your information or simply close the pop-up in order to proceed.

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Note: If you create a modal form, ensure it doesn't annoy your site visitors and force them to leave your site. Modal forms help increase conversions and are highly effective when used in the right manner.

Tip: Ensure your incentive is too good to miss. This will convince your site visitors to provide you with their email addresses without a second thought.

3. Floating Box Form

A floating box form floats and sits on a permanent spot on a page, even when the site visitors scroll. Now you may find this form similar to the floating bar form, but it has a slightly bigger layout. You can add more fields and receive more information about your site visitors with the help of a floating box form.

Oftentimes, this type of form appears when an individual arrives at your site. But, you can also set the time at which you want this form to show up. You can even select where it displays on the page.

4. Inline Forms

These forms are one of the most-used types of lead generation forms. Inline forms are embedded within your page content. You can include them on your site's contact page, landing page, or just about anywhere else.

Let's take an example to understand a scenario where you can use this type of form. You can use it to receive a site visitor's contact information along with the state they reside in or the size of the company they work for. Ofcourse, you should have a reason for asking for such information.

Best Practices for Your Lead Generation Form

When you deploy the best practices for creating and optimizing your lead gen forms, you get to drive the maximum benefit out of these forms.

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Let's discuss these best practices along with some important lead generation form examples:

1. Choose the Correct Type of Form

Check the intent of your customer before you decide on the kind of lead generation form to use. For instance, if a site visitor wants to sign-up for a mailing list, you should create a lead gen form with a minimal number of fields.

In contrast to the example shown above, it's best to put in place a long form if your customer base requires an insurance quote, for instance.

2. Your Forms Should Look Best on All Screens

Your audience may come across your form on desktops or mobile phones. Irrespective of whether it's a desktop or mobile screen they use, make sure your lead generation forms work and look best on every screen size.

Tip: You can take certain steps that help make the form-filling experience easier on the small screens of mobile devices. For instance, you can left-align the form fields.

3. Break Longer Forms into Multi-Step Versions

Some lead generation forms need a lot of data entry. It's best to break such a form into multi-step versions. For instance, the food delivery service, SnackNation, uses multi-step options in their lead gen form to break the monotony. If you see their lead gen form, you will notice that they have added different field types, a progress bar, and auto-scrolling.

4. Add a CTA Button Within Your Form

Adding a CTA button within your lead generation form informs your site visitor about a definite action they should take. The CTA of a lead gen form includes the use of standout colors and power words. This helps highlight it. Here's an example of a lead gen form by LinkedIn that uses a clear CTA called Sign in along with its signature blue accent color:

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5. Create a User-Friendly Form

Here are some steps you can take to create user-friendly lead-generation forms:

• Ensure your website loads quickly. In other words, the web page that contains your form should never be slow to load.
• Your form should provide clear instructions to the user.
• Ensure you adequately space out the fields in your forms (both vertical and horizontal).
• Don’t add any non-essential fields that make your form unnecessarily long.
• Make sure you create a logical order of all the fields in your form.

Use DashClick's Form Builder Software for Your Requirements

DashClicks' Forms app is an efficient online forms building and management software that enables you to create custom forms for any kind of data collection. You can use the app to quickly create effective lead generation forms.

The best part about using the Forms app is that you can choose from hundreds of pre-built templates to speed up your workflow and save your time. Also, there is no limit to the number of form submissions you can have stored in your account. Use the app to create simple, great-looking lead gen forms. You can also use the app to get one organized view of all your forms and submissions.

Notable Features of DashClicks' Forms App

Take a look at some important features of the Forms app:

• You can send one-time form links to contacts and invite them to submit the information you need to collect.
• When you add fields to your form, you can customize backgrounds, borders, and fonts as per your preference.
• You can easily embed the form you create on your website.
• Three form types are available while using the app – classic, group, and card forms.

Wrapping It Up

From helping you generate as many leads as it can to getting sufficient information about them, effective lead generation forms offer a plethora of benefits. Now that you know all about these forms, you can create lead gen forms that help you convert your site visitors into potential customers. Use a reliable form-building software by DashClicks to create visually appealing, user-friendly lead gen forms. Good luck!