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Why investment in organic search can help in a crisis period

06/21/202108/16/2020 by scmarketing

Increasing your online presence in organic search should be the top of any business inbound marketing strategy. If it wasn’t prior to 2020, then now more than ever it should be. As more people are relying on online search to shop, search for services and communicate, a Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) strategy is vital, especially to small businesses and start-ups, to help your website be seen in the noise.

With marketing budgets for print advertising taking a hit due to COVID, many marketers shifted to organic search.

The reason businesses opted for SEO is that it helps a business be seen online and helped maintain presence during the crisis. As many companies had to change business model, such as restaurants turning to takeaway services, if the online world wasn’t already important it became essential compared to a poster in an establishments window. The footfall had moved online therefore SEO provided the capability of helping businesses stand out.

Local search rankings

With three in five (59%) consumers saying they have used more local services during lockdown, the importance of visibility online is crucial. The Deloitte report goes on to say one in three (32%) used new brands, products or services that they hadn’t heard of during the lockdown.

Therefore, it’s clear that having presence online opens up new opportunities with prospects and increased brand awareness. By ensuring content on your website includes relevant local information ensures that you are targeted and can help you improve in local search engine rankings.

Organic search and your website

When people search Google, SEO or local search is a way for businesses being seen by local potential customers. This is where companies that invested in organic search at early lockdown reaped the benefits as an SEO strategy is long-term as you need to keep up refreshing your site with mew, original content and keywords to maintain and increase your rankings in search engine results.

This is because search engines look for triggers such as content on a website that is tailored for the area you’re targeting.

Backlinks from referring domains including your Google My Business listing and your social media networks, help to identify your business as quality and trustworthy for the search engines to return in results pages.

Search Engine Optimisation for increased online presence

The crisis period may have subsided for the moment as businesses are opening and services resuming for most sectors, but now is not the time to draw back from your online presence.

Continued investment in organic search is a cost-effective digital marketing tactic ideal for SME’s to continue to grow their online market share even in these unprecedented times.

Digital marketing and SEO company in Croydon

As an inbound marketing agency, we provide digital and inbound marketing for accountants and local businesses.

Marketing is all about building awareness of your products and services. With approximately 7 touch points needed for a sale or sign up to a service, it’s important to constantly get your message out there to increase brand awareness. That’s where digital marketing can help. From local SEO to blog page and social media engagement, there’s a mix of tactics to get your business out there – you just need to be targeted.

We work closely with local businesses in Croydon providing SEO services. Get in touch for a free consultation to see what digital marketing services are best for your business and how an SEO campaign could prove beneficial for your business.

What is a CMS website and why use one for your business?

08/11/2020 by scmarketing

A content management system (CMS) website provides you as the owner of your website the ability to easily make updates to content on your own site. By opting for this type of website, once you have had the initial website designed and developed to your specification then you can be in control of future content rather than using anyone external to do this.

What to consider at web design and development stage?

When you first embark on a new website design with a web developer ask them about a CMS system. As part of your requirements make sure the admin dashboard is easy to follow. It should be simple to upload content, install modules and plugins as well as see user activity.

With a CMS you should also easily be able to add images, which is so important for a website, as well as have the options to add eye-catching call to actions or forms.

Talk to your web design agency about the types of themes available to be able to get the design you want. At Smart Cow, we create a wire frame following your brief so you can see what your website will look like prior to build and we can make changes at this stage based on feedback.

Built for SEO

What’s key for a website once it’s live is being optimised. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is an ongoing task that you need to think about when running a business website.

We have a number of blogs where we talk about things like meta descriptions, alt tags and H1 headers. These are key when uploading content to pages or as a blog.

We also cover tips for sitemaps, bot accessibility and URL structure.

You can also check whether a website is SEO friendly, something like Hubspot and its CMS Hub can allow you to work on your SEO strategy as it provides SEO recommendations for content.

Social media marketing

A CMS should allow the capability of integrating with your social media platforms.

Think about whether you will want the ability for people to share posts or pages with the inclusion of sharing buttons. This is a great way to spread awareness of your brand and position you as a thought leader.

Safety, security and support

The security of your website is of the utmost importance. Discuss this with your web developer at initial stages and ensure that security is listed on any proposal you get.

Things to look out for include whether an SSL certificate is included in the proposal cost.

Also ensure you have an updated privacy policy in your footer if you are embarking on a new website.

At Smart Cow marketing, once a website is live and handed over, there is a regular monthly fee for hosting but it’s up to you whether you wish to have support and ongoing maintenance of your site as this is something you may wish to do yourself. Either way, we can provide a website training session for the users who will be responsible for the upload of content moving forward.

Why use CMS for your business?

At the core of a professional web design strategy is about enhancing your online presence. With a swift move for many people and businesses to work remotely, with communication and sales happening online, having the ability to quickly update your website to inform customers and prospects of new opening times, special deals and new services having a CMS website starts to make sense.

It’s also key during this time to position yourself as a thought leader. So, being able to offer timely advice to existing customers and new business leads will help retain clients and improve your lead generation.

Website design Croydon

We’re a web design company in Croydon. Out digital marketing services include creating bespoke websites, SEO, link building, social media marketing and PPC.

Read more about our web design services and get in touch for a consultation or a free website review.

4 tips for successful website design and development

06/01/202107/21/2020 by scmarketing

Look at your online business in the same way you would a shop. Traditionally, as much as a physical bricks and mortar location needs a good foundation a website too needs to be built on a solid foundation and structure.

If you don’t invest in the initial infrastructure of the website, even though the design may be top notch, potential customers searching for your services may have difficulty finding you.

Here’s four points to be aware of when embarking on a new website design for your business. While there’s lots more to consider about the design and functionality, these are your vital starting points to build that robust foundation so that your website structure is optimised.

1. Sitemaps

A sitemap is basically as you will have thought – a list of pages of your website. This is in addition to your main visible menu designed for the website. Clients often ask us ‘why a website needs this specific site map’. The reason being is that it gives both users and search engines an understanding of the layout of your site.

The site map makes it easy to return pages in search engines as it has a clear understanding of where to find your content on your website. This is the start of you creating a solid foundation to build your website.

2. Bot accessibility

Make sure that search engines can find the content within your website and that it is not hidden from view.

Your structured list – your site map – is also meant for web crawlers. This is an important visitor that you want to attract to your website!

Make it easy for the web crawlers (bots) to access and move around your website. You want to do all you can to get your website seen by the search engines.

Our blog on link building for improved website optimisation will also give you some tips on driving traffic to your website.

3. URL structure

The URL name and structure are important to the success of your website. By naming the page closest to what the page is about and what you want to be found for will give the search engines the best chance to find you. Naming pages correctly and structuring the site accordingly is key to your SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) strategy.

4. Quality content

Content is key for the success of your website. Knowing your target audience means you can tailor the content for them including keywords that you want to be found for in search engines. Keep it simple, easy to read and insightful. Be the thought leader in your field.

Take a look at our blog with SEO tips to improve search ranking. It includes an overview of keywords, link building and local SEO which all fall under your content marketing strategy for improving SEO.

Web design Croydon

We’re a Croydon web design agency, with years of experience, building bespoke websites for accountants and local businesses which are mobile friendly and designed to attract, engage and convert prospects. 

Once we build a website clients can take advantage of our range of design services where we build a marketing campaign around your target audience. With a mix of digital marketing tactics such as pay per click advertising, social media marketing, email marketing, video or blogs, we build an ongoing content marketing strategy to attract good quality leads to your business.

If you’re looking for web design company to update your website or would like a brand new website developed, then get in touch with us for your free consultation.

If you’re unsure about the state of your website then why not take advantage of our FREE Website Review. This will highlight areas that may be impeding your website being successful in search engine rankings.

If you’re looking for a web design company in Croydon, we look forward to speaking with you soon.

4 simple steps for SEO improvement

07/08/2020 by scmarketing

Time is of the essence when it comes to Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), as it is a long-term strategy. This sometimes puts people off from even starting to do anything in the first instance as it can initially be a daunting prospect.

So, we thought we’d gather some quick steps to help boost your organic rankings in search engine results. These aren’t necessarily quick wins – as it does take time for you to start seeing the benefit of website optimisation activity. But these are easy actions that can help you in the long-run as well as set a precedence and routine each time you upload any new content to your website.

SEO to boost your results in search engines

1. Meta titles and descriptions

Check that your meta titles and meta descriptions are complete on the backend.

Your meta title is the bold text you see for a website when you search for something online. To help you write the title think of it as if you are simply telling the person searching exactly what they will find on that page.

The title is also a key indicator to Google about the page content so with an explanatory title this can really help Google find the best matched pages for that search. Keep the meta title under 60 characters.

The meta description is the descriptive paragraph you will find directly under the title in search. Stick to between 120 and 158 characters so that the description doesn’t get cut off. Add in keywords you would want your business to be found for as this helps boost you in search too.

Depending on how many pages you have on your website, including blogs, this may take some time to do. But, now you are aware of its importance for SEO then set goals per week of completing a certain number of blogs until you have done them all. Then once you have achieved that, make the process completing the meta titles and descriptions part of your content marketing. So, when you write a blog ensure that you also think of the meta title/description at the same time.

2. Alt text / description

If you have images on your website, then these will want an alt description. This describes the page design and image content. These descriptions may well have already been completed at the web design and development stage. If not, just start to add the descriptions.

3. Fix broken links

Internal links help Google and your visitors understand your web page and navigate your website with ease.

However, there’s nothing worse than clicking a link that doesn’t work so now is the time to do a quick audit of your website and fix any links that are broken. If you don’t really have any links to other pages on your website, then we would recommend that you conduct this task as soon as possible. Make it easy for your visitor to get in touch with you and find useful information simply by adding in links.

For future blogs you write remember to always think of link building when you upload the blog to your website. Again add this to your process checklist.

Don’t forget – make sure you have links to your social media channels on your website.

4. Google My Business

Make sure your Google My Business page is up to date. If you don’t have one, then now is the time to create this. This is a quality directory on the most popular search engine so help Google find you.

SEO digital marketing agency

We’ve not touched on keyword research in this blog as we wanted to really give you those quick hit wins that you can conduct yourself for website optimisation.

Check out some of our previous blogs with more detail on SEO and keywords if you want to discover more.

If you need help on your digital marketing to kick start your SEO campaign and improve your online presence in search results then get in touch with us for your free consultation or a free website audit.   

We’re an SEO agency in Croydon specialising in SEO marketing for accounting firms and local businesses looking to grow with quality leads.