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Improving SEO with Internal links

08/19/202210/27/2021 by scmarketing

Internal links are another key element to consider as part of your search engine optimisation (SEO) strategy. Internal links help website navigation, define your website’s architecture and highlights page authority and ranking in search results.

Create quality content

In order to add links to your website, you need quality content! This can be done by regularly posting to your website usually on a blog or news page. Make sure you include links to specific pages on your website to help a user – and search engines – easily navigate your website.

And, remember that content should be informative for your target audience. Offer your target tips and advice that will help them overcome challenges rather than being product and service focused.

Use anchor text

You should use anchor text for your links. This means include the keyword or phrase generally found on the webpage you are linking to and that you want to be found for in search engine results pages (SERPs).

Link building to avoid

There are two links you should try and avoid linking to in your content:

Homepage: Most websites already have a lot of links pointing to a homepage. It is better to link to other internal web pages to strengthen those and help further boost the overall SEO of your website.
Contact us: At the end of a blog there’s usually a line of text saying ‘give us a call’ (or something similar). Only link back to your contact page if it is 100% necessary and relevant. An alternative is to set up a specific landing page which allows you to book a consultation or link to a relevant service or product.

In general, you want to avoid linking to pages that are already in the main menu, as these will appear in every web page already.

Natural links

Ensure that your links are natural to the reader. If the link matches the context of the content, the reader is more likely to click on it. If it’s an internal link, it helps a visitor stay on your website longer and website engagement is improved.

Use a reasonable number of links

You don’t need to cram your blog post full of links pointing to every page on your website.

Blogs that we usually write are around 500 words and in general we would link to 4 or 5 internal webpages.

There are already a large number of links on all of your pages, in your menu, footer, adverts, main brand logo pointing to your homepage.

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.

Why do people use TikTok?

08/19/202210/22/2021 by scmarketing

TikTok has released a new Global Authenticity Study providing insight into the app and what makes it unique from other social platforms.

The TikTok research with Nielsen is as a result of a survey with over 8,000 TikTok users. This makes it a truly comprehensive report and delve into the popular social network to “understand people’s perceptions of content and brand authenticity on TikTok compared to other top social and video platforms”.

TikTok prides itself in enabling individual users to be “their authentic selves” and this goes for brands too. In fact, this was confirmed in the survey findings with 64% of respondents saying they can be their true selves on the platform.

TikTok goes onto explain: “Nielsen’s study shows users around the globe find TikTok content to be authentic, genuine, unfiltered and trendsetting. At the same time, when looking specifically at advertising content, users still associated terms such as authentic and genuine, while adding honest, real, unique and fun.”

In terms of TikTok for business, what does this mean?

The report revealed significant findings globally, with an average of 79% of users finding TikTok content to be unique or different; and 68% of TikTok users found advertising content specifically to be unique or different from any competitive platform.

In addition, an average of 60% of channel users said they follow brands. And, an average of 70% say TikTok is a platform they would recommend to others.

This means that a large number of platform users could be receptive to your brand content about product or services.

So, should you use TikTok for your business?

There’s no doubt that these are incredible statistics and consumer brands should certainly review the findings as part of research when considering social channels for business.

However, if you are using social media as part of your overall digital marketing strategy, remember it’s not about jumping on the bandwagon and following the herd. It’s about considering social platforms in relation to your business and your target audience.

You will find that some social channels are more relevant than others so it’s always good to do a bit of investigating first.

Statistics like these offer great insight and can form part of your research into what social media channel is best for you.

Understand the demographics of a social platform and check out your competitors and see what they are talking about and which social channels are popular amongst them. It’s likely that if the majority in your sector are on specific channels more than others for example LinkedIn, Facebook or Instagram then there may well be a reason for that.

Talk to us about your digital marketing needs and how social media marketing can fit within your overall strategy.

5 steps to utilise your CMS for SEO

08/19/202210/20/2021 by scmarketing

Search engine optimisation (SEO) is a major, ongoing task for any website, and making sure your website is structured and formatted correctly to achieve the best search ranking possible is extremely important.

Luckily, if your website utilises a Content Management System (CMS), you can use its built in features to make sure you are using the best SEO methods.

Here are 5 ways to make sure your CMS website is improving its rankings.

1. Control the URL for every page

The automatic URL a CMS creates for web pages on your website won’t always be formatted in a way that search engines can read. Ultimately you want the URL to tell search engines what’s on the page. However, a CMS website will allow you to manually create the URL for each page, so you can be sure that it contains specific keywords to highlight what the content is per page. This will the help search engines, such as Google, understand the context of your page, which will better inform how it should be ranked. The URL name is always going to be important – it’s a key factor in creating web presence.

2. Complete metadata

Metadata is incredibly important for also letting search engines know what is on a web page. This includes the meta title and description.

A CMS website provides the capability to define the metadata manually for each page, helping you tell the search engine about your content and the ability to add in keywords where possible.

3. Set up redirects

Creating redirects from one URL to another is something that a CMS website will let you do. This makes sure anyone trying to access a page which has changed its URL will be sent to the right place.

This is especially helpful following a website redesign, which often uses new URLs for new content. Setting up redirects from an old URL to the new URL will make sure the search engines don’t find any broken links and penalise you for this.

4. Broken links

Links to pages that have moved or changed can impact your search engine ranking. So, regularly reviewing CMS reports and fixing issues with broken links is essential to make sure you’re getting the best SEO value.

5. Dynamic sitemap

A site map is a page that lists and links to every page of your website. This is essential for search engines to be able to index all your website’s content. A CMS site provides easy functionality for automatically creating and updating dynamic sitemap using XML or HTML. By using this feature, you can ensure that search engines are always able to access your content and understand your site’s structure.

Web design Croydon

If you use the CMS features you are providing search engines with all the right information so that they can index the pages on your website. This allows you to focus your attention on creating great quality and engaging content.

We provide web design services for local businesses in the Croydon area, creating responsive, optimised, CMS websites. This gives a lot of flexibility for future blog uploads through to ad hoc landing page creations for new products or services.

Book a meeting with us or take advantage of our free website review to see how your website is performing.

How to choose your keywords

08/19/202210/15/2021 by scmarketing

Using keywords and phrases on your website is an important part of search engine optimisation (SEO). Keywords form part of the strategy to help your website be found in search engine results pages (SERPs). So, how do you choose what keywords are right for your business?
Here, we look at a few ways you can brainstorm for keywords that will help with your online marketing campaign.

Search online and take a look at competitors and get a feel for what they are talking about. Look at blogs and news pages to find out about new product launches or services, how they are promoted and talked about.
Check your competitor’s social media feeds to see what snippets they are sharing with their followers and get a feel for what is popular by the amount of shares or likes their posts receive. The types of hashtags being used can help with your keyword research too.
Use Google Trends and see what people are searching for right now.
Check affiliate networks such as Clickbank then check the products and find the relevant keywords that are usually written in descriptions of any product.
Look for long tail keywords. Head keywords are considered to be the most popular searched item, such as “accountant”. This however only takes up a small percentage of total searches the majority being long tail and specific searches such as “find an accountant for self-assessment in Croydon”. So note specific long tail keywords as part of your research.
Membership associations. If you’re an accounting firm and you are part of an association such as ICAEW then check their website for what events and webinars they are hosting as the titles of talks and presentations will give an indication of what’s a topical theme for discussion.
Check industry publications that you know your audience are interested in. See what’s being discussed and trending to help brainstorm ideas for keywords.
Use a tool such as Semrush to help improve online visibility and get further insight into keyword volume and difficulty.

Once you’ve found your keywords you can use these as the basis of your online marketing campaigns however do not use keywords unnecessarily. This is known as keyword stuffing and search engines such as Google will penalise accordingly. In a nutshell, don’t overuse words, if your content feels uncomfortable to read lacking a natural flow because of keywords and it’s perhaps sounding too salesy and irrelevant then it’s best not to use it.

Most importantly focus on writing good quality content to engage with you target audience.

Keywords are just one of many ways you can help to optimise your website.

Digital marketing agency Croydon

It’s important that you understand why optimising your website is key when it comes to the growth of your business. So, if you need a helping hand with your digital marketing strategy, get in touch with us at Smart Cow Digital Marketing for expert advice.

Services we offer include web design and development, SEO, Pay Per Click (PPC), social media management through to CRM and marketing automation.