The ever-evolving world of digital marketing knows only one constant: change. This makes it mandatory for businesses to deal with various challenges and opportunities. In this dynamic chessboard, every move counts, and the stakes are higher than ever. However, balancing the problems and potential shapes your business’ success. So, let's dive into the nitty-gritty to see how your company can up its game.
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The internet world is fast-paced, with countless websites vying for attention. While numerous tactics can help your website grow, there's no denying that SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) is the ultimate power player. However, there are some essential do's and don'ts that can make or break your online presence. Let’s dive right into them!
In today's digital age, having a website is pivotal for businesses, organisations, and even individuals. It's your online presence, digital storefront and a means to connect with your audience. Because your audience can't meet you in person, it’s the way in which you make your first impression on them.
However, building a website is not as simple as it may seem. Numerous pitfalls can hinder your site's success. But the good news is: they’re all easily avoidable! So, let's explore some common errors you should steer clear of when creating a website. Search engine optimisation (SEO) is one of the most popular digital marketing strategies used today, as it allows you to boost your online visibility and gain organic traffic. Whilst there are many ways to implement this, your site content will be a key area to focus on since this will help you attract users and gain credibility.
As they say, content is king in marketing, and the same principle applies to SEO. So, to make sure that you always deliver fresh content to your audience, why not start a blog on your site. Check out some of the top SEO benefits of doing this, and it may convince you to give it a go. Digital marketing is an integral part of any growing business. Your website’s interaction with users plays a big role in where Google will rank your site. Websites need to engage their audiences and thus should be well-designed. User-friendly navigation is also important in sparking and maintaining customer interest. Keeping reading to learn more about the 7 signs we have identified that will let you know whether or not it's time for you to redesign your website.
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. For example, you you're a structural engineer looking for people planning major works to their property, you want to be sure that you website can be found. A website create a first impression for a company. It is therefore important to choose a design that will be attractive and easy to use for potential customers. A poorly thought-out website design may cause potential customers to close the browser and switch to a competitor’s website. Likewise, poor website design will impact the effectiveness of your content marketing strategy.
What is content marketing? Content marketing is the strategy of digital marketers to publish interesting, helpful, and relevant content related to a brand without directly advertising the brand. It's a new year, and most of us are hoping for better things in 2021. Are you seeking to improve the SEO for your online business this year? Whatever your answer, it's wise to update your search engine optimisation (SEO) knowledge because the way SEO works means that it’s a constantly changing entity. Keep reading to see how one or all of these tips could form part of your strategy for improving your SEO.
SEO Stands for Search Engine Optimization and basically refers to the processes that are followed when it comes to optimising (getting the most out of) a website to be ranked by search engines. The most popular search engines on the internet are Google, Yahoo, Bing and Microsoft.
When a website is designed and developed, it should represent more than just a portfolio of your products and services. After all, what’s the point of having a website that looks awesome, but goes unseen by the people that would like to buy your wares? SEO is the technical part of marketing online as it helps your website get promoted to the correct location – right in front of buying customers. There are various techniques used to get more traffic to your website from search engines, which can be broken down into two categories. Off-page SEO, is the work undertaken externally to a website and on-page SEO are the changes made on the actual website. If you read our last blog, you would know that it covered some important reasons for being on social media. Whilst it can be a great way to get more traffic to your website, it can also be an overwhelming element of digital marketing to understand and implement.
If you're unsure about how to get to grips with social media, not sure about what you're doing, or simply feel confused about which platform is right for your business - then keep reading. This weeks blog outlines some of the pros and cons of the most popular social media platforms around. There are several ways that a company can use SEO to improve the rankings of a website. One way that this can be done is through the use of social media. You may think that when you post your comments or blogs that only a few people see what you’ve written. However, it’s the sharing element of your creations that creates the magic - it increases visibility, improves traffic, and generate backlinks. Let’s take a deeper look at how social media can help improve your online visibility…
If you are struggling with your online presence and aren’t quite sure about how to improve things, one positive action you can take is undertaking a review of your Google My Business (GMB) profile. But what’s a GMB, I hear you ask?
They are the short lists that pop up when you search for something generic like “cafes near me” or when you enter a specific business name, the GMB listing can appear. Businesses registered with a GMB can also appear on google maps. This platform can improve your online presence because it allows your business to be seen by the right people searching for you and could ultimately lead to you getting more leads. Setting up an account is easy. Google will send you a postcard with a verification code which helps them confirm you are located where you claim to be at and not across the sea. Once you have been verified, you can go about optimising your profile. Have you considered starting a blog for your business but you’re not quite sure if it would be of benefit? You're aware that creating a regular blog will take up your precious time and you aren't sure if it is worth the effort? Well today, we’re hoping to dispel your worries and explain to you how a regular blog can help your business in a number of positive ways.
As the internet continues to accelerate into an ever-growing marketplace, it means that your competitor's websites are becoming as frequent as stars in the night sky. They sell the same goods or services as your company does online and the question is, what will set your company apart?
With increased competition, your website must impress customers when they visit. An impressive site can help your brand to stand out from your competition and great web design will seize and keep a customer's attention. So, what are the elements that make a good website? Here are four areas that we recommend you consider. Over the years, email marketing has become an art form. There are so many variables that it is almost impossible to scientifically pinpoint what works or does not work. This blog discusses 5 major areas of concern one must be aware of and offers 5 tips on how you can negotiate around them.
You don’t have to be a website designer or developer to know that when lots of people visit your website, that’s a good thing. It means that you are offering potential customers services and/or products that they want to buy or hire.
But (yes, there’s always a but…) getting people to your site and opening doors for them to peruse is not an easy objective to attain. The online market is saturated with services like yours and finding unique ways to stand out gets increasingly difficult, year on year. Website maintenance is every bit as essential for your business development as other policy revisions. These days, far more business flows in through the internet, hence, making your up-to-date online presence more essential than any other process. Lack of consistent website updates can gradually cause your online presence to fade away.
Website maintenance services include things like: · website changes · content updates · illustration or photo modifications · exchanging outdated images · email maintenance · PDF file development and a lot more Nowadays, it is very common for people looking to purchase a service or product to find out more about it by using the internet and Googling it. Anyone who wants to grow their brand, no matter how small their business is, needs a website.
Having a website for your small business is not just about selling your products or services online. Creating an optimised website provides value to customers and is a form of free advertising. Still need convincing? Then keep reading these 7 reasons of why a website would work wonders for your business… During this period of lockdown, it’s important to keep busy and let your customers know that you are still open for business. Whilst how you are delivering your services and products may have changed, what should remain intact is your hope for the future and keeping your customers informed about your service/s.
One way of doing this is by writing a blog. We come across many businesses that have started doing this, but that have somehow not kept up with creatively writing about what they do. This comes as no surprise as regular thought is required, along with commitment of time and some level of planning. Back in 2017, we wrote a blog that outlined actions that would result in your website bringing in more business. Three years on and those principles remain the same…
To ensure that your website delivers more business to you, here are 10 effective steps that you can take. 1 - Mobile Friendly Design In April 2015, Google announced that it would favour websites that are “mobile-friendly”. Companies that are not investing in new websites, could see a decline in their business leads as their websites fall down the rankings. A responsive web design ensures that no matter what device someone uses (i.e. tablet, laptop, mobile phone) your website is displayed on the screen in the most effective way. No longer should mobile phone visitors see a website that is used for standard desktops, like a laptop, which can make viewing content, navigating menus and clicking on links difficult and awkward to use. Improving the online visibility of your business, is something that every serious business owner should be thinking about. The bottom line is that Increased visibility, equals to more customers visiting your business and thereby offering you more opportunities to make money. The following details was originally written by us in 2017. The blog was called , 'Four simple ways to improve your businesses visibility'. It gives bite-sized options of what actions you can start taking today without making you feel overwhelmed. So what are you waiting for? Whether you’re a small start-up business or an established company looking to increase your profits being visible must be one of your primary objectives if you want to achieve this goal. Spreading the word about what you do, the service you provide and the products you sell can be done in a variety of ways and advertising in print still a popular option. This can be accomplished through: - Placing an advert in a newspaper or directories like Yellow Pages or Thomson Local - Distributing leaflets through letterboxes - Putting up your flyers in local supermarkets, newsagents, coffee shops and community centres If you have a shop on your local high street, you will continually be advertising your brand with your logo above the door and your wares in the front window. But how many of us have a traditional shop front to be visible to passers-by? The fact is, the way we shop is changing with an increasing number of high street shops going out of business every day. In 2016 there were a reported 15 shop closures a day across the UK and online shopping is one of the factors contributing to this outcome. With the demise of the traditional physical shop and the increase in businesses going online, the way one advertises a business has transformed. Having an online website window can offer far more sophisticated ways to reach an endless, much broader, supply of customers potentially from around the world. If directly reaching out to like-minded businesses isn’t your thing, or if talking to friends, family and strangers fills you with dread, one option (to start you off gently) is to go to a conference. They are full of people open to being spoken to, having an exchange of ideas and maybe most important of all - exchanging contact details. Who knows, you could be talking to the next Bill Gates! The Perfect Layout team recently attended the free Mums Enterprise Roadshow event in London and we were delighted to see how many people attended. There were numerous stands offering various services and franchises and talks given by industry experts every half an hour. It provided the perfect opportunity to have a chat with other aspiring individuals who were keen to follow their passion and soak up as much information as possible. Whilst the topics were of a preliminary advisory level, looking beyond this, it was a brilliant place to do some networking and get our name known! Online social networking involves working from social media platforms such as, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. If you have something interesting and unique to say about what you do, then use these methods to get your message out there. As long as you stay within the terms and conditions of each social media platform, you will be able to attract new and repeat customers through what you say. You can also run advertising campaigns, gain followers and engage deeply with your customers and get to know them. They then ‘like’ or recommend what you’re offering, your credibility and reputation grows and so will your visibility and profits. The cost for using this method is mainly your time. You really do get out, what you put in, so make the effort (or hire someone to do it for you!) and start writing. Also known as Pay-per-Click (PPC), it allows you to be seen above your competitors when a search is made using keywords related to your business. A big plus is that you can track the number of clicks people make on your advert, measure the cost and pay Google only made when a customer visits your website. The cons of undertaking a Google AdWords campaign are that you need to really understand your business, your customers and, to a certain extent, how the internet works. For example, what words will people use when searching for your business? Choose those terms and then you can set your budget. If you have numerous search terms then your budget will need to be set accordingly. It may take a while to see a return on your investment (ROI), but over time, with some tweaking, this can be achieved. They all help increase your visibility when search engines like Google and Bing, crawl the internet looking for sites that your website is linked to. If your business is cited on these directories, the search engines will see this and view you as being more trustworthy and credible than someone who isn’t listed. The result – your rankings improve. It’s important to gauge the type of things your audience may want to hear about against your ability to provide them with interesting ways to share your expertise. So, get creative and start writing about how the life of your business can add value to the life of your customers. So, step out of your comfort zone and try one of these techniques. If you want your business to be more visible online you must develop ways of reaching your customers. If investing in social media platforms isn’t your thing, then take the time to master something else first. You’ll probably surprise yourself with your own creativity and ability at thinking outside the box. The more confident you become, the more skills you’ll attain and the more your business will benefit. If you'd like a chat any of these tips why not give us a call on 01708 578 015 it would be our pleasure to help you! 1. Keep it Fresh. Your website content must be fresh, trustworthy and informative. Search engines like new content so you have to keep your website regularly update. Don't create a website and just let it sit there forever.
2. Generate Organic Traffic (Part A). This is part of your search engine optimisation (SEO) strategy and first you have to know and plan your keywords. Keywords are the words that people type into a search engine to find something on the internet. A keyword can consist of a single word, such as "bike" or an entire phrase, like "mountain bikes for beginners". 3. Generate Organic Traffic (Part B). Keyword placement is important. Make sure your 'title tags' (the words you see in your browser window) have your keywords in them. This is what search engines use for the title display in their search results. 4. Generate Backlinks. This where other internet sites link to your website. They are important because search engines look at the number and the level of quality of websites that connect to your website to determine how your page may rank on their listing. One of the most common ways of finding backlinks is in trading links with other websites. 5.Article Marketing. Article marketing is a technique to generate quality backlinks to your website quickly and easily. Each article will have an author's resource information box that is attached to your article submission and you can refer readers to your website. 6. Use Feeder Sites. A feeder site is a third party website that allows you to place content on its webite. Search engines like feeder websites and there are many feeder sites online that you can use to siphon traffic from the search engines to your website. 7. Video marketing. It is easy to submit a video to YouTube and some of the other video sharing websites. Add your site's URL to the video itself, and add a link to your site in the description of the video, too. This will help generate traffic, especially if you target keywords with your video titles! 8. Paid Traffic. Pay Per Click advertising is paying for your website to be at the top of search engine results when a person types in the keywords that best describe your product or service. The higher you bid, the higher your link will be displayed in the list and you only pay when a somebody clicks on your link. 9. Employ a specialist web design / search optimisation company. They can apply methods to get your website near the top of the search page. Employing a specialist to generate traffic will cost you money however their graphics, knowledge and input will be search friendly. 10. Remain Consistent. In order to maximise the performance of all of your traffic campaigns you need to stay consistent, adding fresh new content to your websites and consistently maximising exposure so you keep the momentum going. If you would like help getting your website ranking on page one of Google, get in touch with our team on 01708 578 015. Here's a sobering thought. Most blogs are created, and then abandoned. Yes, most new bloggers write just one post, and then give up. This is mostly due to the weight of their own expectations. I've been blogging for the past decade. I have literally hundreds of blogs, and while I may occasionally get bored with a blog, I've never found it difficult to write for my blogs. Writing is both relaxing, and fun for me. In this article I'm going to give you four easy tips which will help you to write more and write well on your blog -- and have fun while you're doing it, just as I do. 1. Imagine Your Reader - Your Reader Is a Real Person Yes, I know that you have thousands of readers, or you hope that you will have someday. But consider that each of those readers is one person, sitting in front of a computer screen. You need to talk to that one person, and not the crowd. Get an image in your mind of the person you're writing the blog post for. It's easiest if you imagine one of your friends. Pretend that you're writing each blog post specifically for your friend. When your readers are real people to you, it's much easier to write for them. 2. Stop Thinking About Writing As "Writing" "Writing" can seem intimidating. You're self-conscious. The bad news is that it takes years to lose your self-consciousness when you write, but there's good new too. The good news is that you can lose your self-consciousness today if you wish. All you have to do is stop thinking about writing as being writing. Here's an easy trick which works for many people: write each blog post as an email message. Start with a salutation, such as "Dear Fred". Then write. When you're done, delete "Dear Fred". You've just written a blog post. 3. Create a Goal and Achieve It Whenever I create a new blog, the first thing I do is create a goal for that particular blog. For every blog I own, I have goals. As soon as I achieve a goal, I set about creating a new one. Your goals can be as simple or as complex as you please. For example, you might have a goal to get 50 readers by the end of this month. Once you start thinking in terms of something that you want to achieve and you have a deadline, your mind gets to work creating plans. You'll find all sorts of ideas pop into your head for how you might achieve the goal. Write the ideas down. Turn your ideas into tasks, and enter each of those tasks into your calendar. Now all you need to do is complete your tasks each day. 4. Build an Inventory of Ideas: Brainstorm Ideas for Blog Posts Brainstorming is fun. I like to sit down with a sheet of paper, and just think about my blog and the people I'm writing it for. Then I just start writing ideas as a simple list right down the page. It helps me if I get away from my computer when I'm brainstorming. A change of location might work for you too. Go and sit in the garden, or go and sit in a café and brainstorm there. Be perfectly relaxed as you brainstorm, make it fun. In fact, you can use this phrase to get started brainstorming: "Wouldn't it be fun to write about________". Try these easy tricks. They make blog writing fun. Today the Perfect Layout team, had a great time experiencing something new. We participated in another excellent course run by Building Legacies, called ‘Live video streaming – getting camera confident’. Delivered by VeenaV, it was a lively, practical course that packed in information about the how's and why's of the process. On many social media platforms, the use of videos is nothing new. You see them all the time and can range from animals doing the funniest things, to people on the other side of the world showing you how to catch a fish in a coconut (random – but so interesting!). The Perfect Layout team - posing for the camera with Veena V and Simon Lewin, Building Legacies For social and business interactions, the effectiveness of video is continuing to grow and if a picture is worth a thousand words, a video is worth much more. Our video blog, outlines the variety of different ways that video can be created. Just a few of the advantages of implementing this are: expanding your audience, getting your brand seen by more people, increasing the number of users to your website and gaining customer loyalty. Streaming your video to a live audience may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but with some planning and creative thought, it could be the winning ingredient to improving your online presence. So did we learn anything today? Absolutely! Whilst being in front of the camera isn’t ‘my thing’, the bottom line is that your marketing strategy should involve the use of video (in some shape or form) particularly if you want to reach out to a different audience. With research, practice, planning and some creative thought – you can get your first live video posted in minutes. If we can do it – so can you! Check out our first Facebook live stream today. If your business doesn’t have a dedicated marketing person making sure you’re getting maximum effectiveness from your website, it’s time to get one or get clued up on how to do it yourself. Google Analytics can deliver important insights about the performance of your website and will allow you to make refinements to your site and ultimately get more visitors and customers flowing your way. The word analytics may sound a bit daunting and technical, but the good news is that Google have made it easy to connect and set-up. However, many small and medium sized businesses don’t take this simple step towards understanding the figures generated by their site. It’s a process that can be undertaken by anyone, but if you feel its beyond your capabilities there are plenty of people, like us, who can help you. A bonus of tool is that it’s totally free to use. It’s often the case that free software comes with a price tag somewhere down the line, but on this rare occasion Google Analytics doesn’t. This powerful tool will enable you to learn all kinds of fascinating insights, for absolutely nothing. Once you’ve installed it, it will allow you to see a detailed analysis of the visitors to your website and where they come from. It will also reveal what they look at, how long they stay, your most popular content, what sort of device they’re using, even age, gender and their likes & dislikes. Importantly too it will show you the “bounce rate”, which is the number of people who navigate away from your site after viewing only one page.
For owners of small and medium sized businesses this is super exciting business information which, in a nutshell, tells you if your website is working for you or not. Other great insights include the ability to track the effectiveness of targeted social media campaigns. It will allow you to see which links have been clicked on to reach your site. You can even see which “keywords” are working for you and those that are not. Again, this is vital information that will help you to improve the use of “keywords” on the site. Google Analytics data is seen in an easy to read dashboard, which you then drill down into to get more detailed information. One of the few disadvantages is that there is so much potential information to see, it can become very time consuming. As a result, it’s worthwhile setting up Custom Reports and specific site Goals right at the start, so you go straight to the information that you’ll need. This blog only mentions a few of the brilliant business insights it can deliver. Why not give it a go and come back to let us know how you got on. |
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