Website design and development

Marketing tips for November 2020

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With lockdown version 2.0 on the horizon, here’s some top digital marketing tips to help keep up awareness of your business going through this period.

Social media

Keep up that solid work you’ve done to build your social media followers. Now is the time to ramp up your presence further with your chosen social networks.

Keep your clients and prospects updated. If you need to change contact details, opening times and whether your services have changed, get your profile updated and share in social posts.

Update your social banner images to let people know you are still open for business even if that is remotely.

Don’t forget to add hashtags in your social posts or add other account handles. This helps to extend reach further.

Website updates

If you have a website, make sure that all your contact details, services and products are up to date. People will still be shopping and searching for services during lockdown.

On the homepage make an update to say that you are still open for business.

Content marketing

If you have a blog, make sure you add content to it and do so regularly. This really helps with search engine optimisation (SEO) and your business being found in search engines. Relevant content is great for ongoing organic rankings.

If you don’t have a blog, we would recommend that you get this added asap to your website. We can help you with that and we can also provide a website audit which will highlight any changes that can help with SEO.

Google My Business  

Do you have a Google My Business page? If not, get one set up – it’s free! If you do have a page already then make sure all details are up to date with the correct contact details.

Add blog posts, offers, images to this page. It all helps with SEO and getting your website seen online.

Our blog, ‘have you told search engines you exist’ has tips about setting up your Google My Business page. Also take a look at our marketing minute videos we have a selection on Google My Business.

Pay Per Click advertising

You may be thinking why would you do advertising at this time. Now really is the time not to disappear. So, Pay Per Click or PPC can help give your website a boost in search engine results pages (SERPs). If people can find you they will discover your services.

Email marketing

If you have an email distribution list, then perhaps think about starting an email marketing campaign.

Distribute to potential and existing customers and existing on your database. Remember to be clear in your message, include a call to action and ensure you have contact details visible.

Look at our blog on what to check before you send your next email marketing campaign – we’ve created a checklist of what to run through before you send your email including a visible unsubscribe link. You must make sure you are GDPR compliant.

Digital marketing Croydon

We’re a digital marketing agency in Croydon and the team are all from Croydon so we have a real passion for the area to be successful, inspirational and attract new business and customers for us all to grow and support each other.

We’ve got some additional marketing resources you might want to take a look at which cover the different types of digital platforms and online advertising to help you form a digital marketing plan.

Contact us for a free consultation if you want to chat further about the different digital options.

Digital marketing tools

Content messaging to deliver on your promise

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The highest-converting lead generation campaigns are the ones that deliver on what they promise. They should create a seamless transition from your ad copy and design to the deliverable itself.

Pay Per Click ad copy

When you set up your next Pay Per Click (PPC) ad copy you need to ensure that the content of the ad and call to action (CTA) that the prospect clicks on reflects what is on the landing page of your website.

Content marketing

Make sure that you’re presenting a consistent message throughout the process and providing value to everyone that engages with your lead capture.

Your lead generation campaign should mirror everything else on your website, on your blog, and within the product that you will eventually try to sell or the services you provide. If not, you’ll have a difficult time getting your lead to the next lifecycle stage.

Your campaign should be about more than just obtaining an email address. It should be about developing a new customer. This is why a dedicated landing page for your offer is really important.  

Call to action

CTAs are meant to send visitors to a landing page where they can receive a specific offer. Don’t use CTAs to drive people to your homepage, for instance. Your landing page needs to elaborate more on what the ad is about – that’s why someone clicked on it in the first place. You then want that person to stay on your website as long as possible so irrelevant content will send them packing far too early.

Even if your CTA is about your brand or product (and perhaps not an offer like a download), you should still be sending them to a targeted landing page that’s relevant to what they are looking for and includes an opt-in form. If you have the opportunity to use a CTA, send them to a page that will convert them into a lead.

Lead generation strategies

Online lead generation encompasses a wide range of tactics such as CTAs and website pop-up boxes to capture emails through to digital marketing campaigns such as Pay Per Click advertising, social media networking via LinkedIn Sales Navigator and optimising your website to improve rankings in search engines.

Inbound marketing agency in Surrey

If you’re looking for qualified leads become a lead generation magnet with the help of Smart Cow. Take a closer look at our marketing services or book a consultation and we can discuss digital marketing strategy that is best to achieve your business goals.

We specialise in digital marketing for accountants as well as providing digital marketing services and web design for local businesses within Croydon. If you’re looking to grow your business, get in touch.

Find our more about lead generation strategies for your business in our blog.

Word in dictionary illustrating keywords

How to improve onsite SEO with keywords

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Keywords are essential for website optimisation and key to your onsite SEO strategy as well as Pay Per Click campaigns. But so often they seem to be veiled in mystery. In this blog we want to dispel any myths and give you a summary about what keywords are, why you should think about them and how they can help your website be seen in search engine results pages (SERPs).

When we refer to onsite SEO we mean Search Engine Optimisation. This is all about getting your website seen in the search engine results when someone searches for a product or service. It is about getting your business in the mix. While there’s a lot to think about with a complete holistic SEO strategy, here we’ll focus on keywords as this is something that you can work on yourself and you’ll soon find that your website benefits. 

Quick website audit

Before you start thinking of key phrases conduct a quick review of your website to see where some gaps can be filled quickly. This will also help SEO campaigns. This will also act as a reminder of anything that is missing and needs changing.

So, firstly, we recommend you review all your website content to ensure that:

  1. Your website is up to date for example, contact details, your team, images etc.
  2. There are no broken links and you start link building. Add internal links to other pages on your website where you can. This all helps with ease of navigation and keeping people on your website as long as possible
  3. Then consider adding a blog or news feed if you don’t already
Get in touch with us for a free website review.

The reason for a blog is that once you have done your review of your website, even though you might be updating content with keywords on your services pages, about us or homepage, these webpages generally remain static. The reason for creating your list of keywords is that you add them to regular ongoing content that enables you to add fresh content to your website with relevant information for your target audience. Search engines are looking for regular, relevant content.

If you already have a blog, then check back to see when you last added any content and how often you do this. The frequency of adding content is just as important as those keywords. The more you use the keywords in fresh content, the more chance you have of being found by search engines and this will help you improve your organic search ranking.

Keywords – be specific

With keywords it’s all about being specific to your business. Think about what your target audience would type in the search engine function to find what they are looking for. This is a great place to start to help you create a list of the keywords for your audience.

Let’s take an accountancy practice as an example. If you are an accountancy firm based in Croydon then make sure that you regularly say this on your website. But also think of variations of the phrase and what else people may search for in relation to your accounting services for example, tax advice, self-assessment, payroll, corporate tax.

Then start to delve a little deeper. Business owners want to work with companies that offer knowledge and expertise, so you can’t just add words to a webpage without any substance. Search engines don’t look favourably when you ‘stuff keywords’ on a page so you need to make sure you have high quality content on your website and that inclusion of a good range of keywords enhances what you have written. Not only should the keywords be relevant to your business it is vital that content is relevant to the blog in question. If people click on your link in search it needs to ‘do what it says on the tin’ to avoid visitors leaving too soon.

So, if you’re an accountancy firm wanting to promote your payroll services in a blog you need to be giving tips and advice to your prospects and include further keywords to help search engines, and that will interest prospects further, for example:

  • online payroll
  • payroll system
  • real time information
  • chartered accountants
  • data security
  • HR solutions
  • pensions auto enrolment

Keywords with a few phrases are sometimes referred to as long-tail keywords. They may not produce the volume of searches but they are usually more relevant. Quality over quantity is good to remember.

Whatever your business, keep an eye on your competition. As part of your keyword research see what they are writing about and telling their customers. If you look at their meta descriptions, that paragraph that you can see when a company appears in a google search, this will give a good indication of keywords.

Header tags, meta descriptions  

Here’s a few more quick actions you can implement that will help organic rankings.

When you write blogs you should also consider adding keywords in the headings and subheadings or H1 or H2 tags (you can ask your web developer about these H1/H2 tags, in a WordPress site it is usually easy to see how to change these but sometimes a nudge in the right direction can help).

Remember to complete your meta description with relevant keywords with what’s on that particular page of your website.

Digital Marketing agency Croydon

We can work with you on your digital marketing strategy including a mix of tactics such as SEO services, social media management, Pay Per Click (PPC), email marketing and CRM â€“ read more about our marketing services.  

Further resources

Using social media for inbound marketing

Stand out on social media

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The pandemic and lockdown have caused more people than ever to turn to social media platforms as a means of staying connected with loved ones, finding new ways to keep busy and to do business. With a global surge of new social media users which grew to 3.96 billion at the start of July 2020, we take a look at some of the latest trends in social media and how new functions could help or hinder your business.

Video and social

A trend, which has certainly been heightened since the popularity of TikTok, is using short and snappy videos to showcase your products or services. With 41% of Tik Tok users between 16 and 24 years old this is quite a specific target audience. It’s not for all businesses, but it’s an indication of the importance of video for reaching out to people.

In fact, 82% of twitter users watch video content. Video stands out in a social feed and can give you the edge of a competitor as more people are drawn to video.

Instagram has introduced a similar segment to Tik Tok called Reels. Think of them as quick insight into your main Instagram feed. This is a great social channel for really showcasing products as it’s totally image led. The stories function also allows you to add video content and this is quite prominently placed when followers scroll through their news feed.

Content marketing

But, video isn’t just about using it on a social media feed. Remember it’s another type of content. All your marketing activity is about generating leads and pushing prospects back to your website. So, when you share content on social media remember to add links back to your website.

Make sure your video content is showing on your website too. Adding them to your blog posts really help to liven up content. It makes for engaging content, builds brand awareness and trust, whilst helping to keep people on your website for longer. Placing a video above the fold towards the top of your page is the best position for it too.

Creating a social media marketing plan as part of your content marketing strategy will help to keep you on track so you don’t miss key dates and you can plan social media posts accordingly.

What social platform should you use for your business?

Unfortunately, the answer to which social media channels you should use for your business is not so easy – how long is a piece of string? Whilst you might think you are extending reach, not all social platforms are right for everyone’s business. Before you create a social account, look at your competitors to understand where they are placed and research what channels your target audience mainly uses.

Only give your time to social platforms which will make a difference to your business. For a professional services firm like an accountancy practice, TikTok isn’t the right channel, this is where LinkedIn, Twitter and even Facebook are much more fitting.

Your website hub

Your website should be the hub of all your activity. It enables you to link all your social platforms and digital marketing activity back to it. Regard it as your digital world. Including a link to your website in social posts is a great form of inbound marketing and perfect for lead generation.

Social media agency London

Get in touch for a free consultation. As a social media marketing company we can discuss social media strategies that could work for you, as well as how social media marketing can fit into an overall digital marketing plan for lead generation for your business.

Smart Cow is a digital marketing agency based in Croydon, South London.

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