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How to improve your website for Google search

08/18/202202/07/2022 by scmarketing

Improving your website for Google doesn’t have to be difficult, it just takes a few steps to begin with. If you want more traffic on your website then it’s important to ensure that Google can crawl and index the pages of your site quickly. The faster the bots can do this, the higher you’ll rank in search engine results pages (SERPs). So here are 10 easy ways to improve your website for Google and get more web traffic:

One of the most important factors in getting a high ranking on Google is having a high-quality site structure. This allows search engines to crawl and index your pages quickly and easily. Links should go straight through from one page to another. Avoid just using “click here”, say what that link is for so as not to confuse the bots, they need to know where you want them to go next.

Every page on your website should be crawlable and indexable by Googlebot, so it’s important than you don’t block pages with JavaScript or CSS styling. Google may not be able to crawl your site properly if it needs JavaScript, so you may lose visitors.

Use crawlable URLs that Google can read and index.

Give your web pages descriptive and relevant keywords in file names and your site structure, this makes it a lot easier for you to find the relevant page faster and also very helpful for bots as they can see what’s on a page at a glance.

Off page factors such as social signals and inbound links can influence your website’s rankings on Google, so make sure you focus on these when trying to improve your site for Google. Social signals are a great way of showing Google which pages with content people like and trust the most, this helps boost your page rankability. Make sure that your website is on as many social media sites as relevant to your business, but don’t spam with your followers with updates.

The more frequently you update your website the better it will be for Google and its crawling bots. Not only does this keep Google from dropping your ranking, but it also keeps you in front of a target audience who are potentially looking for your services or products. You want to be the first one they see when they search their interested keywords, so update your website frequently.

Don’t forget about mobile optimisation. Getting a good Google ranking on mobile devices is incredibly important these days, so make sure that you have a responsive design in place to ensure that you’re not losing any web traffic because of your website design.

It’s important to build inbound links to your website from other trusted sites, this boosts your search engine rankings and also helps you get more targeted traffic. The more quality inbound links you have the better it is for Google and its bots, so make sure that you’re building them as part of your overall marketing strategy.

Search engine crawling can be slowed down if you have too much external content on your web pages, so make sure that you only have high-quality images and videos on each page. This will tell Google to keep crawling your site at a proper speed, allowing it to index more pages which means more traffic!

SEO agency Croydon

As a digital marketing agency in Croydon, we’re well placed to offer local businesses digital marketing services and online marketing advice relating to local SEO services and content marketing to help increase presence in search engine results pages (SERPs).

Get in touch to chat about your business goals and how a tailored SEO campaign can help your marketing strategy.

5 tips for creating video for your business

08/18/202202/02/2022 by scmarketing

A great video isn’t just the result of luck, they’re made by taking a strategic approach to your audience and what you want to get out of it.

Every business is different and there’s no one size fits all for what works best in terms of content or style. So, we’ve decided to share some tips for producing high-quality videos that people will want to watch.

Tip 1: Tell a story

People like stories, so why not structure your video content around an engaging story? Think about what you are trying to achieve through your video – are you simply looking to keep viewers informed about an upcoming event or new product. Or would you rather have a more thought leadership video that helps you build your brand ‘personality’?

Tip 2: Keep it short and sweet

Although people will always have time to watch longer videos, you need to get them interested in the first place. Sometimes less is more.

A great way to create plenty of content is to conduct a Q&A style interview with 5-10 questions. Then you can break down each answer so that you have bite size snippets of content. You can still host your full interview on your website but perhaps use the shorter videos on social media to then push traffic back to your website for the full-length version.

Tip 3: Get personal

Show the human side of your business. So, become the face of your videos to add some personality. It is a great way to connect with people that you wouldn’t otherwise be able to reach out to.

Tip 4: Storytelling through images

A photo slideshow is a great way of telling a story, giving viewers context with engaging visuals that can help them understand what is being said without having to sit through lengthy voiceovers or explanations. It can also help to break up a video into different segments, allowing your audience to select which parts they want to watch.

Tip 5: Keep it interesting

Make sure you mix up the tone of your content and add some humour or fun elements where appropriate. This will help engagement and keep people watching your video through to the end.

Video as part of your digital marketing

For years now we’ve talked about the importance of video and integrating it into your marketing strategy. It creates stand out on your social media channels and engages with people who visit your website. People want an easy way to absorb information so video with captions is ideal.

If you need a hand with video content, we can help you factor these into your overall marketing plan from ideas and script creation through to video production and editing.

Your 5 minute daily social media routine

08/18/202201/28/2022 by scmarketing

For small business owners, running a business, managing finances, employees and new business takes time and a lot of effort. Marketing your products and services is just another key element to keep your brand front and centre of your clients and prospects and another activity that you need to juggle.

In this blog, we provide an overview of what you can do to conduct a mini audit of your social profile before taking up the challenge of conducting a 5-minute daily social media routine to help maintain and build on your brand awareness.

Social media audit

When was the last time you checked your social media profile on your business social platforms? Is it up to date? Is it clear what you do? Have you completed all you can – LinkedIn is great in highlighting how much of your profile is complete whether for your company or own personal profile.

Make sure your website address, email, telephone number visible and correct. On many social channels such as Facebook you can add in your opening times.

Perhaps it’s also time to refresh your company bio. Keep it simple and get across what you do and whether you have any key areas of specialism to highlight.

Which social media platforms are relevant to your business?

Take a moment to review your social channels. You may already be on Facebook and Instagram but what about a LinkedIn company profile? Including this activity in your social media strategy will help you concentrate your efforts moving forward.

Conduct a little research with your customers to find out what channels are most popular. Also take a look at your competitors and see which channels they use. Check when they last posted as that can indicate how popular that channel has been for them.

Always have in the back of your mind who your target audience is to help you work out what channels are best and to ensure content is relevant.

5 minute daily social media task

If you write blog posts for your website, then use this content in bite size chunks across a number of social posts. Re-purposing your content is a great time saver. But if you don’t have a bank of content already, here’s some ways to start posting regularly and encouraging engagement with your audience:

Create lists of favourite news feeds and share interesting articles for your audience. Once you have the list in place, each day dip into it and see if there is anything to share.
Check notifications, have you been mentioned, or any posts highlighted? This is another quick way to see if there is anything interesting to share. It’s also a time to make sure whether there are any comments you need to respond to or add your own thoughts on the topic so you can be seen as a thought leader.
Is it a national or international day of interest relevant to your business and your audience? Adding relevant hashtags will help extend reach.
#PhotoOfTheDay – does what it says on the tin really! Take a photo of one of your products and share.
Talk about a company milestone.
Give insight into how and why you started your business.
Do you have any new products or services to talk about?
Remind people about your core offering.
Run a special offer.

Social media marketing agency, Croydon

We’re a social media marketing agency and can help you formulate a social media campaign as part of your overall digital marketing strategy.

What is a PPC campaign?

08/18/202201/18/2022 by scmarketing

Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising is a form of online marketing in which advertisers pay a fee each time one of their ads is clicked. This often takes the form of search engine results or website banner ads, but there are many different types and formats to choose from depending on your industry and what you want to achieve through your PPC campaign.

The most common form of PPC is paid search such as Google Adwords. This means that the ads will appear in relation to a relevant search typed into a search engine to find products or services. While Google Adwords is the most popular, you can of course also run PPC campaigns on other search engines such as Bing as well as social channels like Facebook, Instagram or LinkedIn.

Paid ads work by having a small advertisement appearing next to or above organic (unpaid) search results. The idea is that you will only pay when someone clicks on your advert, so the aim is to get potential customers interested in what products or services you are selling which can help them make better decisions about their purchases.

What is the difference between PPC and SEO?

Paid search ads are different from organic results on a search engine. Organic results are free to appear in the search engines but have to get enough clicks naturally – meaning that there are no guarantees of appearing on the first page of a search engine, or even at all. Paid advertising offers exposure of your ad to targeted customers who are actively searching for similar products or services.

Creating your ads

When someone searches a search engine, paid ads appear in a list of results. In Google they will appear at the top of the page above the organic search results. They are clearly marked as “Ad” and if you click the link then this is what you will have to pay for.

When you create your ad think of targeted keywords that you want to be found for in search and add these to your ads. Utilise the ‘ad strength’ guide when you create your ads to make sure that headlines and descriptions are well rated.

Create responsive search ads which enables Google technology to create the best combination of title and text into the ad based on which is performing well.  

Add specific locations to your ads so that it targets people looking for jobs in that area.

It is worth noting that paid advertising doesn’t guarantee getting a sale or conversion on your website, but it can boost your sales if done correctly.

Unlike a traditional advertising campaign, you can continually change online ads to reflect analysis. For instance, with Google Ads you can review regular recommendations for tailoring your ads even further. This means you can add or remove keywords or negative keywords. You can change the content of ads to help optimise performance. Insight also includes number of impressions, click through rate, conversions and cost per acquisition to measure return on investment.

Google AdWords certified 

Each year at Smart Cow Marketing we ensure that we are Google AdWords certified. We are now a Google Certified Partner. While gaining the AdWords certification qualification year on year highlights our in-depth knowledge and expertise on the fundamentals of setting up and managing successful AdWords campaigns, being a Partner shows that Google trusts us even more with the support we offer clients.

PPC agency Croydon

Whether you’re looking to promote your services or launch of a new product to your target audience, a Pay Per Click ads agency (PPC) can help your firm be found and to stand out in local search results.