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 We are asked all the time, why do I need a blog on my website? It probably ranks right next to, what is SEO? And believe it or not the two are related. In a nutshell the number one reason for having a blog on your website is that it drives search engine traffic. How does it drive search engine traffic? Well, for one it enriches your content, but secondly and of equal importance it keeps your site updated. If you think about the way Google and other search engines work, they constantly look for indexed pages. So every time you put up a blog it’s one more indexed page on your website, which means there is a greater opportunity for it to show up in search engines. Blogging also shows search engines that your site is active and they should be checking back regularly for new content, even better it puts more keywords on your site, all of which help it rise up the page rankings; in the trade it’s known as organic SEO!  But it’s not all about SEO. Blogging is one of your best sales tools that can help increase leads and improve conversion rates. While its pretty tacky to use your blog for a direct sales message, it is your big chance to really tell your organisation’s stories. It will also show your credibility and to prove your authority in your market. In many ways blogging is your chance to show off and to really convey that you are an expert in your field. We always get a real buzz when we read a blog that teaches us something new, written by someone passionate about their subject, it’s such a great opportunity to get inside the personality of a business. Don’t make it too long though (around 500 words is optimum), but tell compelling stories in your voice which help customers and potential customers understand something about what you do, how you work, your industry or what you’ve learned on the way. Your blog therefore is the enrichment you put into your site, the thing you do to change it from a showroom into a friendly business. The big benefit of this rich content is that readers love to share new, fun and interesting material they’ve found online. Which means that not only do you have something to put up on your social media channels every time you blog, but so do your clients and potential clients. Think about it, if a potential client has read your blog and has even linked to it on social media, how much more likely are they to buy from you than if all they’d seen were the static “services” or “about us” pages on your website? You know we said its not all about SEO, but actually those social media links are great for creating inbound links to your website, something search engines absolutely love. As you can see we practice what we preach, believing passionately that blogging is the most creative way for driving search engines to find you and to influence prospects to buy from you. If you need help with making this happen, why not get in touch on 01708 578 015 or take a look at our copywriting services for more information.
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Whatever type of Brentwood business you may have - get in touch with the Perfect Layout team today to discuss your digital marketing needs. Our affordable website services offers something for everyone and being local means that we can visit your premises, at your convenience, for a face to face meeting. If you're pushed for time - we can Skype or undertake a conference call. Get in touch today on 01708 578 015.  Today more than half the media we consume comes through digital channels. Reaching consumers through digital channels offers various advantages and today we will discuss five of those reasons. In 2019, no business wanting to succeed can be without a digital strategy. It should be a fundamental part of all businesses to produce, publish and distribute content which allows them to expand awareness of products and services through digital channels. It takes money to make money. If you want to expand your brand, increase sales and grow your business fast, then it is important to invest in marketing for it to happen.
Offering a sale during a festive season in a certain area, can be an example of location-based targeting. Example: A Sandwich Bar can post google ads during rush hours to working class people at 4 PM around 6 KM diameter of the bar. Reason 2 - Visibility in the Online World All potential customers have moved online where they are actively searching for products and services. Unlike the traditional form of marketing, Digital Marketing has the capacity to reach the right audience and also engage with them in various forms of communications. The more you penetrate online the more you can motivate the customers to take action, which generally leads to a better Return of Investment (ROI). Nowadays, there are various platforms in which businesses can be listed. Using social media, directory listing services like Google Maps, Trip Advisor and Yelp can help to increase the brand visibility on the internet. Search Engine Optimisation plays a huge role in the organic side of visibility. Placing Ads on Google or social media are other ways to help increase the visibility of the brand.
Reason 4 - Fast, Effective and Low-Cost Unlike traditional media, digital marketing is able to penetrate the market quicker. Campaigns can be effective when applied with great marketing vision. When comparing costs, it’s more likely to be much cheaper than traditional medians such as directory, print, radio or TV advertising. Businesses can market their services with better effectiveness and at a lower cost. Reason 5 - Measurable Digital marketing campaigns are measurable and can be segmented in metrics to create a meaningful output. The output can be further analysed, in order to optimise further campaigns to create more efficient results. Some of the tools used for Digital Marketing are Google Analytics, Google Ads Platform, Facebook Analytics. An example of how analytics can have an effective impact on a business is demonstrated by this example…A barbershop decides to put a store ad to Facebook. He creates an ad which ran 24h every day. After a few weeks, he looks at the analytics and finds that the peak hour of the clicks in the ads are during the day from 12pm-4pm. Now, he edits his campaign so that the ads run with more budget during these peak hours, and less or not at all outside of these time frames. This way the barbershop used the power of Digital Marketing to successfully give him an increase on his Return of Investment (ROI). Get in touch you if require help with your marketing strategy by emailing us, or calling 01708 578 015.  According to emarketer approximately $11.5 billion was spent on online video advertising in 2018. There is no getting away from the fact that there is now an expectation from consumers to view the products and services of a business in a different format. Those in the know, have incorporated some of their advertising and marketing budget to attract customers by using this method in different ways. The reason for the rise in video advertising becoming more popular is its effectiveness. If a picture is worth a thousand words, a video is worth much more. Forrester estimates that one minute of video equates to 1.8 million words of text in the message communicated. That’s an amazing statistic!
Research shows that four times as many consumers would prefer to watch a video about a product rather than read about it. Video content already represents 76% of all Internet traffic and projections estimate 80% of all Internet traffic by 2019 will be videos. The same study states that using the word ‘video’ in an email subject line boosts open rates by 19% and clickthrough rates by 65%. Video on a Landing PageWhen a visitor lands on your site, you’ve literally got seconds to impress them and get them engaged with what you have to offer. This is the whole point of a landing page. But these days, people are so used to seeing rich media content on the internet that, quite frankly, text content often doesn’t keep them engaged. Embedding a video on your website will not only increase the length of time that visitors stick around, but also, the number of conversions to paying customers, which, ultimately, is what SEO is all about. Cons of using videos on a landing page 1. A low-quality video or poor video execution could possible cheapen your brand and offering 2. A video can be an overkill or a distraction when it's too long 3. An autoplay video might be annoying for users if the website is visited frequently by your prospects and customers. 4. In some instances, an image (meme, infographic, etc.) can be more interesting than a video, especially if your target demographic is less inclined to pay attention to videos. 5. Producing top-quality marketing videos will require hours of learning a new skill set. There are many different types of video content you can use. To give you a flavour of the different types on offer – here is a short list explaining some of them: Demo VideosDemo videos should teach prospects or customers how to accomplish something with your product. It’s not a 1 hour demo caught on camera, but a quick overview of one or more of your features. Keep your demo videos to the point, walk viewers through one action, and do it succinctly. Brands need to create extraordinary video to earn attention, likes, and shares. The video should reflect the business ideology and style in a short and effective way. Event VideosEvent Videos Most event organisers have recognized how important video content is in making people aware of an event. Event videos communicate impressions of the event and transport emotions. Educational VideosEffective educational videos are driven by emotion and backed by facts. Our brains process visual information 60,000 times faster and the use of sound and visual cues increases enjoyment and retention.Video puts us in the room where it happens, which makes it particularly effective in education as it creates context and puts learners at the centre of the action. Explainer VideosObviously, not every business with a website has a product to sell, as some businesses are service oriented. For these, you can increase conversions with the use of explainer/introductory videos. There are varying styles for these videos, and truthfully, there’s no exact science as to what styles work best. It’s more about producing a video that explains/introduces a client’s business effectively and in an engaging way. Animated VideosAnimated video brings concepts to life that text or live videos can’t. Think about it the world really is your oyster where you can make your characters talk all you want, fly, or travel in time. With the help of animation, you can show how mechanisms and processes work in an interesting way. Case study VideosRather than focusing directly on your product or service itself, a good case study tells the story of your customer from their point of view and how your business helped to solve their problems. All of this builds the credibility of your brand. Social proof is another reason why case studies work so well. It’s a psychological phenomenon that means people are more likely to take certain action if they see others taking that action also. Testimonial VideosIf you’re hosting or participating at an event, that means your customers are likely to be there too. Take advantage of the opportunity and get them on camera to create customer testimonials full of passion for your brand. Attendees can also be interviewed on what they are enjoying and learning to get more people to attend your corporate events in the future. This list is just a snapshot of what can be done to help sell your product or service via video. If you need help with incorporating this marketing idea into your digital strategy – give us a call today on 01708 578 015.  If you're finding it hard to get your business off the ground and would like some help getting noticed online, why not give the digital marketing team at Perfect Layout a call? There are many ways to market your business online and finding the path that's right for your company can be difficult to decipher. We can help, our website designers and digital marketer are waiting to accelerate your business. get noticed for the right reasons by getting in touch today!call us on: 01708 578 015. email us at: hello@perfectlayout.co.uk ...or why not find out more by watching our video that explains our digital marketing services.  Online Marketing is the method to deliver promotional content through the internet to the people’s browser or email. Online Marketing can be done by text ads, image ads, video ads, native content or from Apps like Facebook or Twitter and many more. Online Marketing allows you to reach people you may not reach with offline marketing campaigns. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is a practice of increasing the quantity and quality of traffic using various strategies, techniques and tactics to obtain high ranking in organic [Unpaid] search results. In other words, SEO is a process of making web pages attractive to the search engine such as Google, Bing or Yahoo. SEO can be done by editing on-site and off-site elements of the website to improve the chances of showing up higher in Search Engines Results Page (SERP) for important keywords. According to Hootsuite, Google holds 76% of the total Search Engine market share while 93% of people click on the search results in the first page of Google. Search Engine Marketing (SEM)SEM refers to paid search marketing in the search results. We can define SEM as serving an advertisement to a user using a search engine based in their query. For example, for a user who searches for a query, we can bid on certain keywords which match algorithmically to the user query and serve a text ad to them.  Search engine marketing has grown exponentially over the past decade. Google AdWords is the most popular paid search platform used by search marketers followed by Bing. Social Media Marketing (SMM)Social Media Marketing is a method to increase traffic and promote your content, product or service using social media platforms like Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Twitter or other social media apps. We can term Social Media Marketing as the process of using the potential of social media to leverage the value of your business.  Source: Slideshare Out of 4 billion internet users, 3 billion people use social media. So, the power to networking and publishing through social media is high. Pay-Per-Click Advertising (PPC)PPC stands for pay-per-click. It is a model of online marketing in which advertisers pay a fee each time one of their ads is clicked. Essentially, it’s a way of buying visits to your site, rather than attempting to 'earn' those visits organically. The advertiser pays publishers every time a visitor clicks their ad, hence the model is known as pay-per-click, as advertisers only pay when the visitor clicks their ad. If a visitor sees an ad but doesn’t click it, the advertiser is made aware of the impression but doesn’t have to pay as no click took place. Content marketingContent Marketing is promoting free or additional value to your targeted audience or users that you already have. Good content either should provide information [that the user is looking for to solve the problem], inspiration [So people can get inspired to buy or use the product service to solve the problem.] or entertaining so that user will stick to the content for better click through rates. Writing a blog, making video contents, creating a podcast can be few examples of Content Marketing. Affiliate MarketingAffiliate marketing is monetisation of word-of-mouth marketing. It is a way of getting a commission in exchange for referring a product or service to another customer. Affiliate marketing has evolved over the past decade as the internet has evolved and a number of channels such as social or email etc. Basically, it is influencers that are recommending products and services that are not their own, but people go to them to get the information. Email MarketingEmail marketing is a workhorse of digital marketing as you can deliver a highly personalised experience, multiple times on a scale through email. The main advantage of an email marketing is that you precisely know how many emails have been delivered, opened or clicked upon. Tying up these numbers with revenue metrics, the numbers will have a big meaning to your email marketing campaigns. Example of email marketing can be sending promotional emails, email with offers or discount or thanking customers or users for using the product or can be used to provide inspirations to try your product or services. Some of the popular automated email marketing tools are MailChimp, Constant Contact, drip and convert Kit.  Social media should be part of your digital media strategy, if you want your business to grow this year. As with all aspects of life, you can choose two paths: 1) to wing it and hope that the path that you follow will work out OK. 2) Set yourself goals and have a plan in place ,which enables you to carry out those steps that lead you to your goal. For business marketing, goal setting is a must, and within that social media should be included. Sometimes it can be difficult to define what your objectives should be. To help you out, here are some of the most usual social media goals to think about: Raise brand awarenessDo people know about the products and service that you offer. In order to create authentic brand awareness, avoid a barrage of promotional messages. Instead, focus on meaningful content. What questions do your customers often ask? Provide them with those answers in good quality content. If you are the right fit for them, they will remember you and will potentially use your services. You can build a strong brand personality through your social channels and regular content that explains who you are and what makes you interesting to them. Drive traffic to your websiteWhilst you can build your followers within each platform, you may also have a need to drive traffic to your website for them to find out more information, learn about your services, and drive product sales. Using the right tools, you can measure how much traffic your website is getting from your social media posts.
Build your fan baseThe destination in this social media journey is to have a large and regular following, where your fan base interacts with your page in a natural and engaging way. Spending time and effort to create a positive brand persona on social will get you to this point. Higher quality of salesOn social media, use the hashtags and make sure that you are using specific keywords and phrases. Through structured and thought-through social media targeting, you can reach your core audience much faster. Increase in-person salesDo you have a store/office or other in-person location? These businesses use social media marketing to drive in-store sales. Do you have new products to offer? Consider offering a promotion to those who see your posts and come in-person to see you. This way you can monitor what is working within your marketing efforts. Better pulse on the industryWhat are your competitors doing that seems to be working? What strategies are they using to drive engagement or sales? Having a pulse on the industry could simply help you improve your efforts and take some tips from those doing well. To summarise, you can be as involved in social media as you want it to be. However, if you want to get the most out of your efforts, by wanting people to see your social media posts, you have to produce engaging content and respond to your community. By thinking about what you want, will help you decide how to get there.  The end of another year is almost upon us and as a chapter closes, it’s always a good idea to reflect upon the events of the preceding months. At Perfect Layout we regularly work on the business in this manner. It’s a positive way of learning and growing the business – as well as learning and growing ourselves as successful people and business owners. Once in a while we also think that it’s really important to blow ones’ own trumpet. To boast about the good things that are happening in the business and to give each other a cheesy high five! So, read on to find out about our most recent success stories…  Revamped website for Antino and Associates One of our most recent clients came to us seeking help with his current site. It was old fashioned, clunky and outdated. Whilst the content was good, it was too technical, and it wasn't the right tone for their ideal clients. Based in Chelmsford, this Chartered Surveyor wanted a website that highlighted his skills to do with: party walls, injunctions and being an expert witness. The owner works across the UK and wanted his website to reflect this, whilst giving focus to East London, Norfolk, Cambridge and Essex. We worked with him to achieve a website that was attractive to all. It needed clear navigation, relevant images and monthly blogs. His site went live 30 August and all of the keywords we are monitoring are already ranking well. Happy days…  Make-over for RBSS Consulting This client came to us as a result of a networking event. He felt that our services were just what he needed. He wanted to update his website and to be found by more local businesses. His website already had a good amount of content and used video to help draw in traffic from different avenues. Based in Romford, this Business Consultant, was ready to invest in his business. He requested that we write new content that was keyword rich. Our aim was to maintain the language of his profession as well as describing his services in a way that would appeal to potential clients. We also repurposed the blogs that were on his original site. For a site that was relaunched on 1 October, to date his website is doing remarkably well. All of the keywords and keyword phrases that we are monitoring have appeared on page 1 of Google search. We will continue to apply our digital marketing strategies to ensure that his website remains in those top spots. Another satisfied customer… One year on for Arco  Last month, one of our clients reached their one-year anniversary. Arco, run a central heating and plumbing business in Collier Row and have clients across, Romford, Upminster, Gidea Park, Chelmsford, Shenfield, Billericay, Brentwood, Harold Wood and Dagenham. They came to us wanting their site to be more visible. Their previous website had been built by a big, well known, website provider. The previous website did not rank highly and neither did it generate new business leads. This company is now visible on page one for the following search terms: central heating Romford, central heating Dagenham and central heating Upminster. We are still working with them on implementing some basic digital marketing strategies. But what’s holding them back, I hear you ask? Are there actions that we should have taken but failed to do? No. The truth is, that like many businesses, there has got to be time put aside to work on the business. If not, the results just won’t be as they should be. We are passionate about what we do. We get excited when websites we’ve worked on show up on organic search in the number one spot or within the map pack. Our job is to ensure that this continues to happen and by working alongside our clients (however busy!) we know that this will become a reality. Watch this space… We'd love the opportunity to do SEO for your website, our to discuss how we can bring more leads to your door with no upfront costs to you. Call us on 01708 578 015 today! Perfect Layout presents at Hornchurch Professional & Business Association’s networking event2/11/2018  Regular readers will be aware of us advocating the power of networking. If you want to grow your customer base, build relationships with local businesses in your area and get your name and face recognised - regular networking should be on your list of things to do. As a consequence of presenting at a recent networking event, Perfect Layout Digital Marketing was invited to give the same presentation at another networking group called the Hornchurch Professional & Business Association. It is open to all business and professional people in Hornchurch and surrounding areas and has been in existence for over 70 years. We felt honoured by the invitation and made to feel immediately at home by the Chairman, Robert Copeland, and Secretary, Ian Gorsuch. We sat down for a delicious three course lunch and got to know the members. It was an informal occasion, with conversation that went from business talk to deep discussions about the current performance of West Ham football club. Our presentation followed. We gave the guests four practical exercises to do on their mobile phone. The aim, to reveal whether their website was visible and working to bring in new leads to their business. Here are the four tests. Check to see how visible your company is. In your browser… 1. Type in your business type and location, i.e. plumber Romford. Where is your business listed? If it is not on page one, you have an issue with the content on your site. 2. Type in your exact company name i.e. Perfect Layout Digital Marketing – is there a Google My Business listing for your company. If you haven’t got one, you are missing a digital marketing trick. 3. Looking at the organic results of this page. Is your business listed in external directories? If they are not, we recommend that you invest time in creating them, they are a valuable asset for your online visibility. 4. Does your company have a blog/news section? If you don’t, you are missing out in enriching your site with new, fresh and relevant content for your audience. These blogs are additional ways of reaching customers via your website. There was mixed feedback following each of these exercises. Participants were: - surprised to see how invisible their company was when searched for locally - happy to view their google my business profile - in the dark about their business being listed on local directories - accepting that they were not posting regular content to their customers If you have just done the same test and found that your business is missing out on some or all of these points, get in touch with the Perfect Layout team today to see how we can help. Interested in joining this informal networking organisation? For £160 per year, you will have the opportunity of mixing with some friendly, local business owners. Membership is for one person, but if you are unable to attend, you are welcome to send someone in your place. In addition to a lavish lunch, once a month, there is the chance to mingle and discuss the outcome of that afternoon’s presentation. For further information contact Ian Gorsuch: IGorsuch@hwca.com  Are you failing to get leads from your website? Does it feel like a ghoul has hijacked business leads? Are you scared about this ever-changing world of digital marketing? Well, Perfect Layout are here to rescue you from your nightmares as we explain how Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) works. If you put in place these strategies, you will see your ranking improve. Are you ready to handle more leads coming to your business? If you’re serious about wanting people to find you through a Google search, Search engine Optimisation (SEO) must be at the top of your priority list. You won’t be able to generate leads for your business if nobody can find you. So, what happens after someone makes a search? Here is the likelihood of someone clicking on a link, depending on their organic positioning. Breakdown of Google Click-Through Rates in by position Position 1 – 20.5% Position 2 – 13.32% Position 3 – 13.14% Position 4 – 8.98% Position 5 – 9.21% Position 6 – 6.73% Position 7 – 7.61% Position 8 – 6.92% Position 9 – 5.52% Position 10 – 7.95%  Be the first to be found in your field That means if you’re not number one on the page, you just missed out on a fifth of potential traffic. Most people won’t even click on the second page of the search results. If you are wondering why other websites are ranking higher than you on Google. It is because they are making a concerted effort to work on their SEO. The good news is that it's never too late to start...you just have some catching up to do. There are techniques and strategies that you can apply to get you going. The following 17 tips will increase your chances of getting ranked higher on Google searches. 1. Optimise your site for mobile devices Long has the tablet and smartphone been around. They have taken over as preferred devices to search on when compared with a laptop. If your website design is not mobile friendly, you are going to be penalised. Why? Because Google recognises whether your site is mobile-friendly and ranks sites accordingly. Your website must be optimised for mobile users. If this means investing in a new web design, it will be money well spent. Ignore this tip at your peril. 2. Make sure your site is readable Is the language that you are using on your site, written with your customer in mind? If you want people to visit your site and spend time there, speak in a way that they will understand. Don’t try to sound too professional. Write your content in clear and simple terms. Use short sentences. If you are not sure if your content is readable, use the Hemmingway App. It highlights where your content isn't working as well as it could be. 3. Format your page When designing your website, take time to think about the layout for each page. Make sure it is neat, logical and uncluttered. Consider things like your font size and typography. Use coloured text, bold font, and italics sparingly. Consider using bullet points and checklists to make it easy to scan through your content. A clean design and format will improve your organic ranking. 4. Encourage people to stay on your site How much time do people spend on your website per visit? If your site has fresh information, it will keep visitors on your page longer and this can be achieved in various ways, as outlined below.  Keep the content on your website fresh 5. Produce high quality content There is no substitute for great content. Quality content created for your audience will increase site traffic. How often do you update your website? To encourage visitors to return you need fresh content. The more traffic to your website the more you will increase its popularity. Your content needs to be high quality, recent, and relevant. 6. Start blogging Blogging is great for your business. It’s an outstanding tool for lead generation and helps you engage with visitors that come to your website. If you can create a group of loyal readers, you can get lots of traffic to your site on a regular basis. Blogs that incorporate good SEO practice, such as links, increased readability, and keywords, all positively impact on your search engine ranking. 7. Use keywords Keywords play a major role in ranking. Brainstorm your sector. How do you think people will find you? 'Plumber in Romford', vs 'Central Heating Company in Romford' or 'Emergency Plumber in Romford'. There are so many ways people may look for your company. Now you need to include these 'keywords' into the content of your site. But do it sparingly. Keyword stuffing is frowned upon by the search engines and you will be penalised. Keywords should fit naturally into sentences: · Include them in your header tags · Include then in image captions · Include the use of long-tail keywords, (three or four words that make phrase) If your keywords match their search, your website will have a greater chance of getting ranked higher. 8. Break up your content with header tags Headings are another way to help improve the user experience. They break up the content and make it easier to read. If your website is big block of text, people are going to click off your website. If you’re not using headers, try and incorporate them within your content now. 9. More than words Your website shouldn’t be only written words. Break up the pages with relevant, high-quality pictures. Consider also adding videos, slideshows, or audio to your site. This improves the user experience, as not everyone enjoys just reading. Also remember what we said about the time people spend on your site. Videos, for example, can extend significantly the amount of time spent on your website. If that happens, it will boost your search ranking. 10. Optimise your images Pictures and other images are not only visually great for your website. But when they are optimized properly they can improve your SEO ranking. Make sure you do the following: Resize your images. Huge images can slow your page loading time, which can hurt your ranking. Use your images to sneak in keywords by naming them accordingly. Add keywords in the title of your image as well as the caption or description. 11. Include internal links Internal links direct visitors to other pages on your website. Not only are you encouraging the reader to find out more about what you do, you are keeping visitors on your site for longer and reducing your bounce rate. 12. Use outbound links When you are writing a blog or have content that researches a topic, link to sites you have used for information or that go into further detail. Connect your facts to the data source with a hyperlink back to them. When you source something, try to ensure that it is the most recent information. 13. Create anchor text properly If you ever type 'Click here for more information'. STOP. Start creating relevant links within the text. 'Click here means nothing to the search engine. “Central Heating Installations” is rich with keywords. It will improve your search engine rankings, as well as the ranking of the page you are linking to. 14. Provide appropriate contact information Have you ever struggled to find the contact information of a business on a website? This should never happen. All your contact information should be easy to find. Make sure you have a footer on every page of your site that includes your Name, Address and Phone number, otherwise known as the NAP. 15. Sharing is caring Every business and website need to be active on social media. Your SEO ranking will improve when people share links to your website on social media. If you encourage social sharing as a regular part of your SEO campaigns, you will see a difference. Include social sharing icons on all your content and share links on your social media pages. 16. Title Metadata Title metadata is the page title displayed at the top of a browser window and as the headline within search engine results. It is the most important metadata on your page. Make sure your site has this section filled in. 17. Description Metadata When you see the results in organic search there will be a title and a description. This description metadata is vital to encouraging visitors to click to your site. Conclusion Search engine optimisation isn’t going away. If anything, it is getting more sophisticated and complex and is an ongoing job that needs focus and attention. This blog contains a long list of actions but don’t be put off! Write these actions on your to-do-list and go through them week, by week. Every improvement you make will stand your website in good stead. Monitor your results monthly. Checking your traffic and search ranking will help validate your SEO strategy. It will also highlight areas on your website that need more attention. Who knows, by working on these elements, you might claim that elusive number one spot! It's all about outsmarting your competition. That’s what we at Perfect Layout Digital Marketing are working on every day with our clients. These are only a few of the many methods for improving your search engine ranking. If you want to learn more, we recommend that you visit: Improve your performance on Google Search or give us a call and speak to our friendly team. Call 01708 578 015.  In short, yes! When it comes to branding and awareness of your company, you should try to be as visually consistent as you can. You want your customers to instantly recognise you. First you must start with your logo and then build out your brand from there. Ensure brand consistency across all your channels Brand consistency refers to your brand identity, brand voice and brand guidelines. Does everything you create follow these guidelines? Doing so is a major step towards letting consumers get to know you as an organisation. When they know you, they will identify with you and your purpose. And when consumers feel like they know you and can trust you, they will be more likely to buy from you. They will also be more likely to recommend you to their peers.
The content on your website, social media channels, newsletters and any offline marketing should all have the same 'feel'. Making connections between the content you own is a great way to maximise your presence. This way you can ensure you get the largest number of eyes on your products and services. When it comes to your website you should ensure that it is consistent with all your other marketing. You should also be mindful of how user-friendly your site is. Can customers navigate around your website easily? Structure: how well structured is the content on your website? You need to aim for a minimum number of navigation layers. Customers want as few clicks as possible to get to what they want. The website section division must be clear, logical and predictable. Minimalism: efficient web page navigation is always simple and user-friendly. Add only those elements to your menu design that are essential for the effective communication. The key to success is a menu bar consisting of a minimal number of sections that goes to what they need. Design: when selecting a design focus on readability, integrity, and harmony. Too many icons, buttons and shortcuts will put visitors off your site. The simpler the web navigation, the likelier customers will stay on your website. Remember that: navigation can affect traffic and how high you’ll rank and how much traffic you’ll get from search. Navigation affects conversions: how easy the site is to use effects what percentage of visitors convert into leads and customers.  Social media icons Social Media Integration Do you want to grow your market and reach a broader audience? Then the key is to integrate your business into social media. Social media channels and your website should work together to promote your online brand. Opening accounts in these platforms is completely free. They are a very good tool to increase your popularity and online presence. Add links to your social channels from your website to increase the chance that search engine users will find your website. Being active on social media channels can help build (or retain) a solid audience. Post regularly and keep your audience updated on your products and services as well as what's new on the market. Unless you are able to do it yourself, marketing requires a lot of time, effort and money. But when it is done correctly and consistently across the various channels, it can be extremely powerful and rewarding. Getting your brand, marketing strategy, website and social media platforms to where you want them to be, takes time and a lot of effort. If you are a small company, it might be worth considering hiring external professionals to help you. If you want to know more about this important topic read our blog How important is branding for my company? You might also like: 50 meticulous style guides every startup should see before launching by Canva. Nowadays it’s plain to see that a massive part of our marketing strategy is undertaken digitally. Consumers and businesses spend more time searching online than anywhere else, so that's exactly where your business needs to be in order to reach them.  Whether you have been in business for a while or your business is in its infancy, the ever-changing picture of digital marketing can quickly grow and feel overwhelming. As a self-employed business owner, you are already faced with a long daily to-do list. How are you supposed to create, and maintain, an effective digital marketing strategy too? What is a digital marketing strategy? Your digital marketing strategy encompasses a series of actions (that take place online) with the aim of marketing your business and attracting the right customers. The term ‘strategy’ might seem frightening but simply means, ‘plan of action’. Creating an effective digital strategy doesn’t need to be scary and should be viewed as a necessary tool that's used for bringing more paying customers to your business.  Allow your business to grow and branch out How to build a comprehensive digital marketing strategy You will gain a better insight into your sector by studying other business models and reviewing the approach taken by your competitors. The results can form part of your strategy. The following is a list of other factors to consider when devising your strategy. 1) Identify and build your buyer personas Buyer persona's shows your ideal customer and can be developed by researching, surveying, and interviewing the target audience of your business. It’s important to note that this information should be based upon real data. Making assumptions about your audience can cause your marketing strategy to fail. To get a rounded picture of your persona, try and include information that relates to their demographics, motivations, behaviour patterns and goals. Include a mixture of customers and people outside your contacts database who align with your target audience.  2) Identify your goals and the digital marketing tools you’ll need Your marketing goals should form a significant part of the objectives for your business. For example, if your business’s goal is to increase online revenue by 20 per cent, your goal as a marketer might be to generate 50 per cent more leads via the website than you did last year to contribute towards that success. Whatever your dominating goal is, you need to know how to measure it. The success of a digital strategy will be measured differently for each business and will vary dependent upon the nature of your goal. Having the ability to measure the impact of a marketing strategy is essential as it will allow you to refine your approach accordingly. 3) Evaluate your existing digital marketing channels and assets. Which ones are you using? Should you be on others? The digital landscape changes quite often, so it’s a good idea to do your homework and find out what is out there, who is using it, why are they using it and if it’s a method that will fit in with your business. Not all platforms or assets are right for every business.
The key is to build a plan of what you would like to do and how you are going to achieve this. Can it be executed with your current resources or do you need to invest in more staff or external help? 4) Audit and plan your owned media. Your owned media (original content that you create yourself) is often placed at the heart of digital marketing – your website. Each element of content that your brand creates, such as your website pages, product descriptions, blog posts, e-books, infographics, all helps transform your website viewers into leads and customers. It can also boost your search/organic traffic. Whatever your goal is, you’ll need owned content to form part of your digital marketing strategy. You can then use other platforms (e.g. social media) to broadcast your messages to other audiences. 5) Create a content strategy and develop your earned media Earned media is external publicity that you haven’t paid for. This is media exposure that comes to your business via methods such as, customer reviews, or content that has been shared, reposted, or mentioned by other people on their social media channels. A good content strategy creates earned media. In turn, this exposure gets picked up by search engines and works towards them favourably ranking you above your competitors. Review the digital marketing asset column above and consider which tools will help your business receive more engagements and improve the external publicity for your site. 6) Do you have a budget for paid media? If you have a marketing budget, you may want to spend some of it on advertising. Branded content, pay per click advertising (PPC) or display ads in print/online newspapers/magazines are all varieties of paid media. Budgets can be spent easily, so choose wisely where you want to spend your money. For online businesses, this is an essential aspect of revenue growth and building brand awareness.  7) Bring it all together. It’s never too late to start implementing a good digital marketing strategy for your online business. A combination of owned, earned and paid for media can often give you better results. Remember to plan ahead (as much as is realistically possible) and schedule regular meetings to evaluate the impact and performance of what has gone out. What lessons have you learned? Going forward, does the marketing plan you have in place need to be tweaked? Digital marketing checklist: - Profile of your buyer persona - One or more marketing-specific goals - An inventory and audit of your existing owned, earned, and paid media - An owned content strategy plan - Social media marketing plan - Ideas of how you can create earned content - A budget and plan for paid for content (advertising) Have you got everything covered? We’d love to hear how you plan and action your digital marketing strategy. Leave a comment below to get the discussion started.  On 1 October the Havering Chambers of Commerce and Industry (HCCI) held their annual showcase event at the Queens Theatre, Hornchurch. For the first time, Perfect Layout Digital Marketing were in attendance as exhibitors. As we arrived to set up, many businesses had already organised their tables and there was a buzz of anticipation in the air. Exhibiting at this event was open to both members and non-members of the HCCI and Barry Hicks (Chairman of the HCCI) had meticulously overseen the planning and administration.
The evening was opened by the Mayor of Havering, Dilip Patel, who spoke about the value that local businesses added to the community. There was a raffle with prizes that had been donated by the exhibitors and a free buffet and wine, for everyone in attendance. Being on the other side of the table presented the challenge of attracting business owners to the table to talk about how our services could help theirs. Whilst we understand that not everyone needs our services, it was our aim to highlight that having a website that ‘looked good’ was only one element of drawing regular leads to an online business. We presented a PowerPoint questionnaire that asked attendees the following questions: Does your website and digital marketing need some TLC? We have some quick tips to help make your site work better for you. Enter your business service plus location to find out where your business comes up, i.e. website designers Romford It’s a well-known fact that when people search for a service, businesses beyond page two don’t get looked at When searched for locally, where does your business appear? Does it appear in the Map Pack? Do you have a ‘Google My Business’ listing for your business? When you type your name into Google, does your business appear in a box to the right and does a list show where your business appears in directories? Claiming your GMB and optimising your profile can do wonders for increasing your online visibility – and it’s free! If you are struggling to be found, let us put the icing on your ‘website’ cake. Do any of these questions touch a nerve or highlight aspects of digital marketing that your business is lacking? If so, get in touch, was we can definitely help! We really enjoyed attending the HCCI showcase event. It enabled us to mingle with other businesses and sow a seed in their minds about what we do. It’s still early days to know whether or not we’ve acquired any new customers, but networking for us isn’t just about that. It’s about getting to know the faces and personalities behind the businesses in our area and passing details on to others that may need their help. For us, creating real connections in this way is what networking is all about.  Whatever type of business you have, there is no getting away from the fact that people will expect you to have an online presence. Whilst some business owners are able to make a reasonable income via social media platforms (like Facebook and Instagram) or e-commerce platforms (like Etsy and Shopify) having your own website has many benefits. If your budget limits you from hiring a website designer, or you are attracted to the idea of creating a website yourself, there are many website providers to choose from. They will advertise low-cost packages with guidance on how to do it yourself, but will the end result generate more customers coming to your site? Five top tips to having a great website  Top tip 1 – ensure that the content on your site accurately reflects the services/products of your business. Your bounce rate will increase if your writing style includes over long sentences, has grammatical mistakes or has a dull/flat tone. Analyse your competitors and review what does and doesn’t work for them. Let your website reflect your personality and the type of business that you have so that you don’t come across as cold and boring. Brainstorm the terms that your customers search for you. Googles keyword planner is a tool that can help you pinpoint relevant long and short tail keywords. Having relevant keywords allow search engines, like Bing and Google, to match the right business to the right customer. We understand that creative writing is not everyone’s cup of tea, so if the thought of doing this doesn’t sit well with you, why not give us a call? We have an excellent copywriting service that can be accessed in isolation or as part of an ongoing package. Top tip 2 – be sure to encourage your conversion rate by giving those perusing your site every opportunity to get in touch or make a purchase. Using Call to Actions (CTA’s) throughout your website are a great way of nudging customers to act. CTA’s can be contact forms, telephone or current special offers.  Top tip 3 – gone are the days when all websites were difficult to view on a mobile phone. Business owners on platforms that are not mobile friendly will be penalised by search engines, which could negatively affect your rankings. When creating your site, make sure it has the ability to respond to the device (mobile phone, laptop or iPad) that is being used. Customers do not like websites that have poor navigation. Make it easy and obvious for people to find their way around your site as clumsy navigation that has not been thought through could lose you income. Top tip 4 – take the time and get your business listed on external directories. This will help boost your online presence as search engines view you as a trustworthy business. Read our blog for more details about why your business needs to be listed on directories. Top tip 5 – consider the layout of your website. Have a theme that limits the use of colours, fonts and gifs. You will want each page to look its best and engage with customers – not distract them. High engagement leads to a higher conversion rate. Pages that are cluttered will prohibit users from scanning text for key points. The use of photographs can really bring a website to life. Avoid using stock images, wherever possible, as they can depersonalise your business. Having images of yourself, staff and business premises will assist customers build a picture of who you are and the service/product you offer. This list will definitely put you on the right track to getting the most from your website. If you find that later down the line your rankings haven’t improved, why not get in touch? Our Perfect Layout web development team are ready to help!  Search Engine Optimisation, also known as SEO, is the techy way of describing how to make the most of a website’s online visibility. Imagine you have purchased a house that was in desperate need of repair. How would you go about getting it to look it’s best? There are various things that you could do. You could: replace the windows, build an extension, re-plaster the walls inside out and landscape the garden. After completing these jobs, the house would serve better as a home. It would also be more comfortable and functional. That’s what SEO is. It’s a way of making the purpose of a website work better and be found by people looking for it.  If you have a website, blog or online store, SEO can help your business grow and get your business found online. SEO techniques vary. It’s a good idea to make sure that you put in place the basic strategies and check them regularly. The process of optimisation is not a one-time process. It requires regular maintenance and fine tuning alongside continuous testing and monitoring. SEO can increase the quality of a website by making it user friendly, faster and easier to navigate. In today’s competitive market, undertaking SEO is more important than ever. Search engines serve millions of users per day. They look for answers to questions and solutions to their problems. The job of a search engine is to come up with the best options for its users. When applied correctly, good SEO will bring in online traffic and grow your customer base. The following is a list of some SEO techniques that you can apply to your site:
- Your competitors are doing itIf your competitors appear above you in organic search, it’s likely that they are applying SEO techniques. If it can work for them, it can work for you too. Invest time doing it yourself or employing someone to do it for you. - BacklinkingBacklinking is a key feature of Search Engine Optimisation. Also known as ‘incoming links’ and ‘inbound links’. This is when a link from an external website is directed towards yours. Websites that link to a variety of authoritative sites will rank higher in search engine results pages compared to those who have links to sites that are not as powerful. Getting it right is key. If you have inbound links on your site that don't relate to the content on the page, they will be considered irrelevant. Your website could be penalised. The higher the relevancy of inbound links, the greater their quality. - Internal linkingLinking to related articles, or pages, on your own website helps search engines better understand the importance and topical focus of each page. Creating links this way assists Google in determining the relevancy of your website. The more people like and share your content, the more visibility you’ll receive from these social media channels. As you develop quality backlinks, it will help to boost and sustain your rankings over the long term. - Back end SEOComplete the page title, page description and meta keywords for each page of your website. Search engine algorithms select websites with keywords that match the users search terms. - Page titlesKeyword-based titles help establish page theme and direction for your keywords. Choose a title that reads naturally and effectively. Make sure it communicates the topic of the page’s content. - Meta tagsMeta description tags can influence click-throughs but aren't used for rankings. Meta tags contain keywords or phrases alerting search engines of a website's content. - Place strategic search phrases on pagesIntegrate selected keywords into your website's content. Make sure the tone sounds natural. Doing this will help the search engines quickly determine what the page is about. - Sign up your websites to online directoriesFind directories where you can list your business for free. This method will get links to your website quickly and naturally. It also helps get your site indexed by the search engines. Start with directories such as yelp, Yellow Pages and Thomson Local. - Maintenance It’s important to continually review the movement of your website. Where does it sit alongside your competitors? You will achieve good results if you consistently undertake these SEO principles. A common mistake is to focus on the quantity, rather than the quality, of backlinks. If you’ve ranked for a particular keyword, there is no need to build excessive backlinks to that page. Google can detect if a site is gaining links at an unreasonable pace. Building links too fast is like waving a red flag that can potentially get your website closed down. If you want to maintain your keyword ranking, try to expand your inbound links to the various pages on your site. This strategy will diversify your backlinking profile and increase your website authority. If this sounds confusing, fear not. The team at Perfect Layout Digital Marketing, would love to help fix your website with some SEO TLC. Give us a call on 01708 578 015  The success of your website is determined primarily by its content. Good content is what sets your website apart from the masses and delivers the right message into the minds of your customers or audience. Having clear, relevant and keyword-rich content that delivers the right message with power and conviction is the key to success. The content of your website should always begin with proper market research. Taglines and slogans that are customer-centric (focusing on the needs of the customer) are essential to capturing their attention. The content on your website should target your audience, engage them and persuade them to take action. Content marketing involves the creation and publishing of content and sharing that content in order to acquire customers. This information can be presented in a variety of formats, including blog posts, videos, white papers, infographics, case studies, and so on. Posting relevant, valuable and frequently updated information on your website will help boost your Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). It will also help by placing you in the position of an expert and allow you to build relationships with your audience professionally.  Your SEO keywords are the key words and phrases in your web content that make it possible for people to find your site via search engines. Quality content writing is the most important part of your SEO. Keywords are very important for every business and a website drives targeted web traffic to your business for free. When a visitor uses a search engine, like Google, to find what they are looking for the content on your website comes under scrutiny. With quality content and SEO-friendly formatting the Google algorithm will look for important words at particular places on your web page or blog post – thus enabling you to get found. Another important detail to keep in mind are long-tail keywords. These are keyword phrases that contain at least three words, and sometimes more. Long-tail keywords are used to target niche demographics rather than mass audiences. In other words, they're more specific and often less competitive than generic keyword terms. They are very specific to whatever you are selling. So, said more specifically, whenever a customer uses a highly specific search phrase, they tend to be looking for exactly what they are actually going to buy. Some businesses choose to include keywords relevant to their business in their domain name. This strategy works as long as the name is in line with the brand identity for the website. It is also important not to limit your business by choosing a name that is applicable for your business only in the short term. Let your 5 to 10 year business plan reflect where you want to be long term. One way in which to create relevant and powerful SEO keyword-content for your website, is through brainstorming. Try and put yourself in the position of your customers and think about the words they might use to search for the services and/or products you are offering. This process can be undertaken on your own or in a group.  Because algorithms are constantly changing, it’s paramount that you keep a fresh eye on the content of your site. If people are changing the way in which they search for you – the keywords on your website will need to reflect this too. Why not have a look at your site today and think through some of the keywords your customers might be using. Do they appear on the pages of your site?  Simple answer - YES! Whilst there are website design companies like us that optimise websites for a living, undertaking this role is something that you can do yourself. For example, designing a landing page that’s built for leads doesn’t have to be an overwhelming nor time-consuming exercise. By simply looking at examples of some of the best converting lead generation websites, you can learn precisely what works and why. If you want to attract visitors who have a strong intention of ultimately using your services, your landing page will have to have plenty of good content, quality links and authority.  14 Top tips for optimising your website… The following steps are proven to increase not only conversions, but also your site's trust factor and presence. For good optimisation of your website that will help generate more customers it's worth considering the following... Top tip 1 - add forms to the pages that get the most traffic To begin with, conduct an audit of where most of your online traffic and outreach comes from. Here are some of the most common places that a business might get visitors from: Email Marketing - traffic might come from users who click through to your website from one of your emails that you have provided. Social Media - traffic might come from users who engage in a campaign through one of your social media profiles linked with your website. Live Chat - traffic might come in the form of users who reach out to your customer service team through a live chat window on your website. Blog Posts - traffic might come from your highest-performing blog posts. Top tip 2 - start with a basic CTA on your homepage If your homepage's design is what catches a person's attention, the CTA (Call to Action) is what keeps it. Your homepage sits at the top of the marketing funnel and should therefore offer either a free trial or subscription to a recurring campaign, such as a newsletter. Consider including one of the following CTAs on the front of your website:
 Top tip 3 - offer ebooks for download on specific blog posts Another way to generate interest in your business is to create blog content that promotes an ebook or whitepaper, wherein your website visitors can learn more about the same topic they have just read about on your blog. We are always writing about the importance of blog posts and keeping content on your site fresh and relevant and this strategy is where lead generation meets search engine optimisation (SEO). To start, conduct keyword research on a topic that's relevant to your industry, and create a group of blog posts around this topic. Then, draft a report that delves much deeper into this topic. Package this report into a PDF that your blog readers can download using their name, company, and email address.  Top tip 4 - develop a live chat service for your website To generate leads though live chat, audit your website to see which pages your visitors spend most of their time on. With the right development resources, you can install a live chat tool on the pages where customers need the most assistance or information. This allows you to practically collect and log insight on their product needs while answering their questions. Top tip 5 - personalise your calls-to-action Personalised calls-to-action convert 42% more visitors than basic calls-to-action. Visitors who see website pages that remember them from an earlier date are more inclined to stick around and start a conversation with you. Top tip 6 - make your videos speak to the user Online videos greatly increase conversion rates for a wide range of industries (particularly e-commerce websites). The highest performing videos speak to the user rather than at them. Online users who viewed a product video are much more likely to convert over users who simply viewed an ad. Top tip 7 - use action oriented words when describing your offers Using action-oriented words in your offer (such as, ''feel'' and ''get'' etc.), places the customer in a pivotal role as the one receiving the benefits as opposed to simply imagining them. Top tip 8 - featured image Every great post has a great image. This makes the post more attractive, both on your site and in the social streams when it gets shared. This is your chance to explain concepts visually with informative charts or diagrams. Top tip 9 - descriptive header A descriptive header is good for visitors and good for search rankings. Top tip 10 - social sharing buttons Make it easy to spread the word. Share buttons can appear at both the top and bottom of the post, or even as a “sticky” element that follows them as they scroll down the page. Top tip 11 - try to avoid cookie-cutter site templates It is best you avoid any cookie cutter “all-the-work-is-done-for-you” website templates. Instead, consider investing in the best possible website that you can afford, and make sure you make the purpose of each page clear, up front, so that the designer can tailor it to generating leads.  Top tip 12 - evidence, data and social proof Add evidence of your legitimacy and the value of your services. This may include examples, statistics and research. Top tip 13 - personality, values and your story Talk about your values, your origin and why this work is important in order to make this a page that sets you apart. Top tip 14 - nurture your leads Place leads into a workflow once they fill out a form on your landing page so they don't forget about you. Deliver them valuable content that matches their interest. Lead nurturing should start with relevant follow up emails that include great content. Finally, take a look at your website. How do you think it’s doing against the above points? Call us today so that we can discuss how we can help you put in action what you currently have missing.  Last week, 13 July, Christine Huntingford from Perfect Layout Digital Marketing was invited to give a presentation at the Havering Chamber of Commerce and Industry (HCCI) breakfast meeting, where members and visitors attended. She thought long and hard about what to talk to them about and decided to make it an interactive session with the participants and let them know in 10 minutes, after a few simple checks, whether their website was working well for their business and whether their website and digital marketing need some real Tender Loving Care (TLC). Firstly, to get a sense of their initial thoughts she asked the following questions:
This gave everyone a moment to reflect not only if were they genuinely happy with their current service, but also to validate if this was a way in which they were bringing in customers. Now we know its all very easy to think that everything is fine with our website, but how do we really know? Well, these next simple tasks can reveal whether your website is working for you. You can do this for your site at any time.  Task 1 Open your search browser for the internet and look for your business, by type and location. Please don’t type in your company name but instead type in say ‘Accountants in Romford’. Is your company is listed on page one? If it is that’s great news. Potential customers have a chance of finding you and calling up your business. For those of you that didn’t appear on page one, you may need to think about how to improve the content of your website to help you to be found. Task 2 Whilst before you were asked not to type in your company name into the browser, this time, do exactly that. For example, for our Company it would be, ‘Perfect Layout Digital Marketing’. Can you see the Google My Business (GMB) listing for your business? Can you also see photos, posts and full details about your company? Do you have reviews? If it’s a ‘yes’ for all of that, that is excellent! You are on track with taking full advantage of GMB’s latest updates and features. If you didn’t, Perfect Layout can help you either set up a Google My Business, or help you enhance what you already have there. Task 3 Keeping the page that you had open for task 2, now scroll down the results page, do you have your business listed in external directories? Such as Yell, Thomson, Netmums, or any online directory for your sector? If you have more than 3 external directory listings, you are doing well, these connections on external sites help give your website relevancy and demonstrate that you are an active business. If you are not listed on any external directories, it is recommended that this strategy is employed in order to help your business get found. Task 4 Does your website have a blog section? If it does, was the last post published within the last month? If this is you - congratulations! You are doing a good job of sharing news about your company’s activities and products to your community. If you don’t, get in touch with Perfect Layout about the benefits of a blog, which can help your website rank better.
Being on external directories can improve your online visibility with prospective clients. Having a blog section is an opportunity to update your community on what you are doing and makes your business more authoritative. In the second half of the presentation we introduced an alternative strategy for phone-based businesses who don’t have the money to invest in a new website or redesign of their current website - but need to be earning more money and secure new customers. To clarify, a phone-based business is when people would call you as their primary way of contacting you, rather than via email or walking into your business premises. Let’s imagine the following: Our client, a dentist, gets some enquiries from his website, but he would like more. His family is growing and they need a bigger house, but what he is currently earning isn’t quite enough to be able to move, just yet. He doesn’t have the money to rebuild his website and invest in keyword-rich content. However, as a phone-based business, he has the option of securing potential customers through a customer generating website that’s run by a digital marketing agency. This website will generate new contacts specifically for his business by creating a new website free of charge. It will be found organically on the top pages of search engines and could bring him that extra revenue that he is looking for. From these new clients there’s a high likelihood of them becoming repeat customers, who will visit for check-ups, as well as the need for ad hoc additional treatments. Fabulous recurring revenue for years to come. It’s a no brainer – so where's the catch? It’s simply a matter of paying a small fee to the digital marketing agency for each enquiry that comes via that website. If this has struck a chord with you and you would like your business to build up its client base and recurring customers, give us a call today to talk about whether your niche would suit such a website.  For many businesses, social media is an indispensable tool for finding and engaging with customers, improving sales, advertising and promoting products and services as well as gauging trends and offering customer service. Social media has a significant role in helping businesses as it:
While 76% of direct sellers use social media for promotional purposes, 55% use it for recruiting new distributors and 42% use it for reactive purposes. Consumers are the most popular target for social media, followed by distributors and communities. Social media has evolved into a driver of strategy, and will become even more important in the future as customer relationships are improved and developed by listening and reacting to concerns. The transparency created by social media is enhancing trust and ethical organisational cultures. In addition, consumer brand communities are emerging that are increasing brand value.   1 – Facebook This is easily the largest social networking site in the world and one of the most widely used. Facebook was perhaps the first that surpassed the landmark of 1 billion user accounts. An average Facebook user has 180 friends. Apart from the ability to network with friends and relatives, different Facebook apps can be accessed to sell online and market or promote a businesses brand and products by using paid Facebook ads. Facebook has incredible insights about their users and can target very specific demographics with very specific ads. Facebook ads are shown more regularly to advertisers who are willing to pay more than other advertisers targeting the same people. This creates a bidding war and makes advertising campaigns that focus on a small niche more profitable. Number of active users per month: approximately 1.7 billion
  2 – Instagram Instagram was launched as a unique social networking platform that was completely based on sharing photos and videos. This photo sharing social networking app thus enables you to capture the best moments of your life, with your phone’s camera or any other camera, and convert them into works of art. This is possible because Instagram allows you to apply multiple filters to your photos and you can easily post them to other popular social networking sites, such as Facebook and Twitter. It is now part of the Facebook empire, with 1 billion registered users. More than 80% of Instagram’s community lives outside of the U.S. More than 300 million users check Instagram Stories daily. Number of active users per month: 500 million approximately
  3 – Twitter This social networking site enables you to post short text messages (called tweets), containing a limited number of characters (up to 240), to convey your message to the world. With the growing craze for online shopping, Twitter makes it possible to promote your business and shop directly through tweets. More political leaders use Twitter than any other social platform. 276 heads of state, government and ministries in 178 countries use Twitter. 68 million monthly active users are located in the U.S. 262 million monthly active users live outside of the U.S. (roughly 80%of all users). 42% of Twitter users use the site daily. 8% of US Companies use Twitter for marketing purposes. 74% of Twitter users follow small businesses to get product updates. Number of active users per month: 330 million approximately
  4 – Google+ Owned by the tech giant Alphabet (Google), this interest-based social networking platform enables you to stay in touch with people by sharing messages, photos, videos, useful links to sites and so on. It is estimated that it has a total of 2 billion registered users. It also extends support for video conferencing through Hangouts and allows businesses to promote their brands and products through Google+ business pages. Top 5 countries using G+ are USA, India, Brazil, UK & Canada. Number of active users: 395 million approximately
  5- LinkedIn LinkedIn is easily one of the most popular professional social networking sites or apps and is available in over 20 languages. It is used across the globe by all types of professionals and serves as an ideal platform to connect with different businesses, locate and hire ideal candidates and more. It also boasts over 500 million members. The more precise demographical data about people you are connected with is usually behind a pay-wall (a tool to monetize digital content securely and efficiently) such as on LinkedIn. 171 million users are based in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. The U.S. has the largest national user base (146 million members), followed by India, China and Brazil. 49% of college graduates use LinkedIn. 45% of adults making more than US$75,000 per year are on LinkedIn. More than 46 million students and recent college graduates use LinkedIn. They are the networking site’s fastest-growing demographic. Number of active users per month: 250 million approximately
 Love them or loathe them, social media platforms are a must for all business owners to use. Denying your business a presence on the right social media platforms could lose you leads, revenue and repeat custom. If you are overwhelmed with where you should start, give Perfect Layout Digital Marketing a call to see how we can help build the right social media strategy for you.   Christine Huntingford, CEO, Perfect Layout Digital Marketing will be one of the guest speakers at the Havering Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s (HCCI) breakfast meeting this Friday (13 July). She will talk about how businesses need to invest in their website and digital marketing; in order to stay ahead of the competition. Breakfast meetings are free to members and guests are welcome too. As a local business owner, it is likely that your days are filled working with for your customers with your specialist skill-set. If you are lucky to have a lot of referral work, it is likely that one day rolls into the next and one week into another and before you know it, that promise that you made to yourself that you will update your website, or that you will post more often on social media, falls to the way side. If you are one you one of them, now is really is a good time to take stock and find out if what you are doing is really working for your business? Ask yourself: when was the last time you really looked at your website? Does it really work for you in the way that you want it to? (- i.e. are you getting leads from it). Do you know how easy it is for potential customers to find you? Is your social media activity where it should be? We all know that there is more that we can, and should, do. There are simple and relatively quick things that you can do that can make a big difference to your visibility online. Some elements cost you time, not money. And those that do cost money, can be scaled to what is affordable for you.  Come along on Friday 13 July to the Havering Museum in Romford and join the members and guests of the Havering Chamber of Commerce and Industry to hear Christine share ways for you to check if your website is easily found (or not); your website is the foundation of your digital marketing strategy and if that isn’t right, that is where you need to start first. From there we can build the blocks to ensure that you are engaging with potential customers on a regular basis. The meeting starts at 7:30am for networking and the speakers will be presenting between 8am and 9am. There is a further opportunity to network until 9:30am. Guests welcome: £10 on the door.  You may have noticed that the world we live in is changing…how we communicate, how we shop and how we do business. Many of these changes have come about as more and more people walk around with mini computers in their pockets. The owners of these Smart Phones range from the very young (many a lot younger than my 12 year daughter!) to the very old - my father wouldn’t thank me for mentioning his age (!). They have a worldwide appeal and their technology becomes more and more sophisticated with each passing year. According to a recent survey of 170,000 adult internet users in 32 markets conducted by GlobalWebIndex 75% of adults that own a smartphone are using them to access the internet. That’s a lot of people! If your business has a website that doesn’t convert for mobile users, you will be missing out on a massive market of potential customers and the real chance of increasing your profits. If you’re reading this blog and wondering how it is that you’ve never come across the term, ‘mobile strategy’ before – don’t worry, there is a way for you to catch up if you implement these 5 tips to creating a mobile strategy. Tip 1 – ask questions Before you begin creating your strategy, have a think about what you would like to achieve by asking yourself and/or your team some of the following. For example:
Tip 2 – do you want a mobile site or a mobile application? If your business has a website you will want it to be mobile responsive. This means that users will not have to download anything to view your information properly. The mobile site can detect the user’s device and automatically format the content for optimal viewing on that platform. Mobile applications require a device-specific download from a marketplace, such as the Apple App Store or the Android Market. Whether you choose to incorporate a mobile site or mobile application as part of your strategy, you will want to ensure that the information is clear and concise – thus easy to understand. Make the user experience as smooth and enjoyable as possible. You want to encourage people to return or recommend your service and/or product.  Tip 3 – combine the use of Social Media into your campaign We all know the power and influence social media platforms have, so now it’s time to think about how best to turn their strength to your advantage. Each social media platform offers tools that enable you to listen to, engage with and monitor your audience. Did you know that 40% of Pinterest, Twitter or Facebook users have purchased something after watching and sharing it? This means that your mobile strategy should integrate with your social media platforms. This includes sharing reviews, having social sharing buttons and creating content that is both engaging for your audience and promoted through social media ads. Tip 4 – create different device campaigns It’s common that households today have multiple laptops, tablets and smartphones that cater for the uses of all the family. According to KISSMetrics, “over 40% of smartphone users watch TV while browsing a smartphone.” Because people are now adept at multi-tasking on this level, it’s important that marketing campaigns are adjusted to take into account the device, location and time of day of the end user. This way, you will be able to maximise your return on investment by delivering content that is relevant to different members of your audience. Tip 5 – send out timely alerts Have you ever found yourself checking your phone even when it’s not made one of those little ‘ping’ noises? Well you’re not alone. If you have done your research and truly know your audience and the time they would like to receive these alerts, take advantage of people wanting to look busy by sending out notifications of your latest discounts, savings or next big event. Please note that this list is not exhaustive and is offered as a starting point to help businesses create a strategy. Have you found this article useful? Give us your feedback and let us know how you have implemented your mobile strategy. We’d love to hear from you!  So we landed in Las Vegas yesterday afternoon for this year’s annual conference. It’s the first year that we are attending. As with any industry conference, you have to decide which are the right ones for you. You need to evaluate what you are going to gain from it and consider whether or not it will see a return on your investment. We knew that this was the year that we were going to make it to Las Vegas and that it would tick all three boxes. Whilst we could have saved ourselves the expense of the trip, and watched the online videos when they became available, we decided that we had to be there to gain the most from the experience. It was time to head on over to meet our peers face-to-face, share our experiences and learn from theirs. The 10-hour flight passed quickly (thanks Virgin for your stream of food and drinks - though your entertainment system’s touch screen was frustrating to say the least!). The two-hour wait to make it through passport control was not so much fun. By the time we got to our hotel, we were feeling the strain of the long day.
A little siesta helped recharge the batteries and we soaked up the bright, brash adult theme park that is Vegas. The temperature was high and the desert wind felt like someone was blowing a hairdryer over our bodies as we walked the strip - it took some getting used to!
Today, our bodies have adjusted to the US time-zone. We have explored the hotel and got our bearings for the conference tomorrow. There are plans on the Facebook group to meet up with delegates later and we can’t wait… These next few days, will bring us up to speed with digital marketing changes and give us the opportunity to immerse ourselves with experts who have walked the path that we are walking on. We hope to make new friendships, some that may last a lifetime. Sometimes you have to take a leap of faith and trust that things will work out and we can already feel that this will happen. We will keep posting on our learnings and adventures, so watch this space!  Christine Huntingford, CEO, Perfect Layout Digital Marketing will be one of the guest speakers at the Havering Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s (HCCI) breakfast meeting in July. Many business owners are busy working ‘in’ their business and rarely take the time to work ‘on’ their business. Are you one of them? When was the last time you really looked at your website? Does it really work for you in the way that you want it to - i.e. are you getting leads from it? Do you know how easy it is for potential customers to find you? Is your social media activity where it should be? We all know that there is more that we can, and should, do. Often the, ‘time thief’, prevents us from taking action. But there are simple and relatively quick things that you can implement (if you haven’t already) that can make a big difference. Some elements cost you time, not money. And those that do cost money, can be scaled to what is affordable for you.  Come along on Friday 13 July to the Havering Museum in Romford and join the members and guests of the Havering Chamber of Commerce and Industry to hear Christine share ways for you to check if your website is easily found (or not) and things that you can implement quickly. The meeting starts at 7:30am for networking and the speakers will be presenting between 8am and 9am. There is a further opportunity to network until 9:30am. Guests welcome: £10 on the door.
 If your business has a website, it is important not to see yourself as a stand-alone island with no links to other shores. If you want your island to be successful it needs to have connections with other islands that are well connected too. In other words, having your website is just one of the steps of having a good online presence. However, it is imperative to take the time to list your business on other online directories too; so that they not only promote your services, but also add authority that you’re a current and valid business to approach. When creating your listing on directories, like Thomson; on websites like NetMums, or on social media platforms like Facebook, you should include as much information about your business as possible. This includes giving obvious information such as your name, address and phone number (NAP). Google My Business has made many changes to their features (read our article: What's new with Google My Business?). All businesses should list their information on it as a starting point in creating citations.  Why is it worth taking the time to cite your business on directories? It allows you to be found by a greater number of customers through search engines like Google. The more directories your business is cited on, the better chance you will have for your business to rank highly in organic search. With the majority of users turning to their mobile device to look for products, information and services, online directories help facilitate being found at any time, from anywhere. Do you want to miss out on potential business because you didn’t take the time to invest in this digital strategy? Each directory company will offer different features, but this is what you may be asked to provide:
Listing a business on a directory is not difficult, but it can be time consuming. If you choose to give it a go yourself, make sure you do the job properly. If you don’t, it could affect your income, online rankings as well as your reputation. Follow these tips to ensure that search engines, like Google, view you as a business that’s real and trustworthy and ultimately worth ranking:
Remember, citations that are accurate will help your business get noticed. So what are you waiting for? If you don’t have the time, or the inclination, to do this, the team at Perfect Layout can help you. Fill in your details below and we’ll get in touch to find out more about your business. By filling out this form, we will only contact you regarding this matter; we respect your data.  If you have accessed your Google My Business (GMB) listing recently you may have noticed some changes. Whilst you may think, ‘here we go again, another thing to add to my to-do list’ it is worth taking the time to update your profile and ensure that everything is relevant and fresh. If you are a small business you will know that reaching a wide customer base can be tricky. With this free-to-use profile, invest the time to make your business shine. Be one of the leaders in this change making sure that your profile is singing your praises from the rooftops. If you haven’t created a Google My Business listing, Perfect Layout Digital Marketing recommends that you do. Not only does it show the essence of what your business has to offer, but the new features means that this platform is more attractive than before. Why is local SEO so important? If you are a local business, local SEO could have a huge impact on the success or failure of your business. You can use local SEO to outrank the competition. The relevant information is accessible for everyone to take advantage of and whilst many local businesses spend their time running their business, digital marketing is usually at the bottom of their list of things to do. For companies making use of local SEO and in the case of Google My Business, taking advantage of the new features demonstrates to potential customers that they are: staying up-to-date, that they are knowledgeable and well-informed and that they are taking strides to separate themselves from the competition. The result is that it can help secure potential customers more easily. Would you like this to be you? So what’s new with the Google My Business Listing? Information section This is a snapshot of the most important information that a potential customer may be interested in The information section includes opening hours, reviews, address, phone number etc. Company Description Ok, so what’s so great about the description feature? Well it’s back! And that IS exciting. When Google My Business was called Google Places, the description section about your company was available, but then they took it away. Now all businesses have the opportunity to describe the wonder of their business on GMB in 750 words or less. Make sure you spend time writing a description that will attract customers to engage with you. Messaging In 2017, Google released a new messaging feature, which allows you to 'live message' with customers directly from the search results page. So if a customer has a quick question, when you have this function enabled they can send you a message and in an instant you can reply…talk about fabulous customer service before they have even come to you! If your information changes, like your business location, name, or telephone number, Google will allow you to easily make updates to your dashboard. This is another feature that they once removed but has resurfaced again and it is this tool that will help you make changes more easily. Videos Yes Google My Business Photos has added video content as a feature. Posting videos on your listing can help encourage customers to stay on your listing for longer and therefore find out more about you. These videos can give you the edge to your competitors. Currently, video clips are limited to 30 seconds in length and they will feature next to the photo section.  Restaurant Menus If the business you own is a restaurant and your listing is categorised as a restaurant (vs a café or bistro), Google have been thinking hard about you guys. Restaurant owners can now add and edit menus on their Google My Business listing. There is now a facility that will allow you to categorise the food into sections, such as starters, mains and desserts, as well as adding descriptions and prices. Again, this is a powerful tool that can help you stand out from the crowd. Why is your restaurant different from the others in your area, what makes you special? Do you have something unique? Do you have special offers? Remember to include as much information as you can to help you stand out and get the diners through the door. Posts ‘Posts’ is the most exciting feature that looks to have a big impact on local businesses and their local search engine optimization (SEO) strategies. The feature will allow businesses to quickly connect with customers, both new and old, in a unique and attention grabbing way. Posts allow you to share content with people who are searching for terms related to your business. It can be seen as a cross between social media marketing and search engine optimisation. It not only allows you to increase the visibility of your business, it also offers a way in which you can give deeper information about your services and products, that otherwise wouldn’t be possible. You can also post links to your website and include call to action buttons like ‘Buy’ or ‘Learn More’. Using Posts also helps you to get more of the organic search impressions and clicks. When you decide to include Posts on Google as part of your local SEO strategy, remember that this task will never stop. This is another beast that will need constant feeding. However, it is worth giving it a try. What have you got to lose versus how much do you have to gain? If all of this just seems too much, help is at hand. Give Perfect Layout Digital Marketing a call on 01708 578015, or fill out the quick form below so we can get in touch with you. If you complete this form, we will only contact you to ask you about GMB listings. |
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