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Flexibility for change  

04/21/202004/17/2020 by scmarketing

One of the most prominent things we’ve noticed with businesses during these unprecedented times that COVID-19 has impacted on us is that we’re adaptable to change.  

Local businesses evolve

We’ve touched on video conferencing as many businesses, who are able to, have adapted to working from home. But where businesses rely on footfall to physical premises, they too have evolved. We’ve been amazed and in awe of the ingenuity of locally businesses here in Croydon. As we’re sure you are too in your local areas.

From bars, restaurants and cafes so quickly turning to providing online delivery or  takeaway options. People want these places to survive. We all want to return to normal as soon as possible so having the ability to support and buy where we can is great all round. 

The arts, so used to collaboration face to face, they too have had events canceled and have switched to total reliance on online selling (#artistspledge has caught everyones attention – read about it on Instagram).

These are only two sector examples. It goes without saying that this is affecting everyone.

Flexible working

The term flexible in business is often heard. Whether that be flexible working or a flexible software solution that your team can create dashboard views that suit their individual preferences. Whatever, flexible is a prevalent term.

But for so many of us, this had not been tested to the degree we see today. For many office-based companies working remotely was probably seeping into the normal routine anyway, but evern so it’s still a dramatic shift for many.

Perhaps before now we didn’t truly understand the term ‘flexible working’. It’s not just about the ability to work at home, remotely and when suitable for you. It’s so much more. It’s about adapting to change swiftly for the benefit of the business and its target audience – whatever sector you work in. It’s about how you solve the challenges your target audience is facing. What solution you can offer them within your capability.  

Seeing how all companies are changing to cater for their customers and clients, in such a short space of time, has been heartwarming. It’s not only about businesses surviving, it’s so much more – it’s about community being at the heart.

Keeping present in a digital world

Now, more than ever, the solutions offered by the digital world are paramount for keeping businesses in the public eye.

Digital marketing has always needed to be flexible. These marketing solutions are not just plug and play (read our blog on it’s not just about social media to get more of our thoughts on that). Digital marketing forms part of your inbound marketing strategy and lead generation. It’s about a package of tools that you switch up or down according to metrics, campaigns and your goals. 

Ultimately , you want visitors to your website, but how do you get them there? This is where you need the flexibility to adapt to change and perhaps take the time to act on implementing marketing activity now, so that in a few months’ time, your continued online presence will reap dividends as search engines remember you. Just like the local shops, bars, pubs and art groups, just because you do not have your physical premises does not mean you should not and can’t be seen. 

Digital marketing resources for your virtual business

Here’s our resources to help you with inbound digital marketing. We’re also able to hold a video call with you to chat through some quick online marketing wins you could implement to help your business in the long-term. 

The Digital Marketing Tools to help you engage. A mix and match approach will help maximise your opportunities. Chat to us about the what each entail and what may be the best fit for you so that you can form a digital marketing plan.  

Lights, camera, action! Using video for business

05/26/202204/15/2020 by scmarketing

With lots of people now working from home, many of us are getting to grips with video conferencing to hold our regular update meetings. But not only that, video is a great way to spread the word of your products and services, a tactic often used in digital marketing campaigns.

Video is great for content marketing and sharing on social media, but don’t just take our word for it, just look at some of these staggering statistics:

Well, it certainly makes sense to be in the mix when you see how popular video is.

So, if you’re embarking on creating some short video tips for your clients and prospects or perhaps you’re looking to host a webinar, here’s our top tips for working on video.

Tips for your delivery on camera

Look at the lens.
Keep hands away from your face.
Don’t fidget – Don’t hold anything (if possible) as you’ll have a tendency to fidget with it.
Avoid looking at notes when you’re talking. It doesn’t need to be word perfect. You want it to come across as natural.
Smile or make sure your face is animated. Be expressive, much more than normal.
Keep the message concise.
Speak slowly. This helps make the piece authoritative, easier to understand and easier to edit.
Practice, practice, practice.
Above all – be natural.

Tips for video set up

Appearance: Check your appearance, hair, collar, background should be as clear as possible.
Lighting: Nice soft light to the face, also a light to the wall behind works well, if possible.
Sound: Make sure there is as minimal background sound as possible. Reduce the hum of your PC, fans, air conditioning, switch of the ringtone of mobiles, and your messages on PC/Laptop etc.
Check your sound recording is good.

Relevant content for Search Engine Optimisation

It’s not about posting any video, it’s important that your video content is also targeted to your audience, with a relevant script, tagline and a clear call to action for increased engagement.

If you haven’t already, then develop keywords and phrases for your business. This is simply about what key term you would like to be found for when people search online. The more content you produce using keywords the more your website is recognised by search engines and improves your search engine optimisation (SEO). This is relevant to video, not just written content. You can add captions to videos so that people don’t have to switch volume on.

We’d recommend having accounts on channels such as Vidyard, Vimeo and YouTube. This all helps with your rankings in search. Think about the name of your video file and its title when you upload to the video channels as it should contain keywords. On YouTube you can add an SRT file to enable you to add subtitles and closed captions rather than burn them onto the video file. This can help with SEO within the YouTube channel. Don’t forget this is another search engine.

Video for your website

It’s not just about sharing your videos on social media and adding to video channels such as YouTube. Remember that you should be adding the video to your website. Ideally you want to push social media posts back to your website to view the video. Remember that placing the video higher up the page is much better for engagement with website visitors.

Smart Cow is a digital marketing agency in Croydon. If you’d like a free website review to look at how your website is performing in search to find out how an SEO campaign can help local search results, complete our form and we’ll take a look for you.

Resources

Word in dictionary illustrating keywords

Link building for improved website optimisation

04/09/2020 by scmarketing

One of the most important steps in an efficient search engine optimisation (SEO) campaign is link building. You can boost your presence in Google and maximise your Bing results or beyond with a marketing strategy that encompasses link building.

Online results are all about lead generation and therefore traffic to your website. Links on other websites help to drive traffic back to your website.

You may be thinking that your social media posts also have links so is that not enough? While it’s a good start as social media channels provide quality links back to your blog page or service information, having more quality links back from other reliable and trustworthy websites helps add further to your domain authority.

As a business owner, this is something you can start to make headway on during this time of change as we adjust to our different working environments.

Benefits of a quality link building strategy

Here’s an overview of the main reasons you want to implement a link building campaign within your SEO marketing strategy.

Getting lots of useful and relevant links for your website will help search engines position your website in a higher level in the search engine results;
Traffic on your website increases due to the presence of high quality links that point and refer to your website;
Generate more leads if your website is targeted to your audience
Prospects search for your services helping business growth, quality leads and improved customer retention.

Tips to start link building for website optimisation

To create a successful link building campaign to drive traffic to your website you need to take a considered and coordinated approach. It’s not about placing content anywhere. Key link building techniques to consider include:

Create quality content

Quality content is essential to attract your target audience. You need to solve their challenges and provide value. Achieve this through engaging content. Include noteworthy statistics (reference your source where you do), advice, tips that will help their business. It’s about quality over quantity. Make sure the website’s you target are relevant to your target audience and sector.

Be targeted

With content being key to your link building, knowing your target audience is essential. This way you can provide the quality content that they will want to read. Find out about creating an online persona for your business which will help you create engaging content for your target customer.

Be relevant

This is important for search engines. Their goal is to deliver the most relevant results for an enquiry. So, make sure your links point to the most pertinent information on your website. If visitors – your prospective customers – need to click more than once when they reach your web page you’re likely to lose them. Make sure you evaluate the landing page that you will use as the link to your site so that it has relevant information and easy website navigation to help reduce bounce rate.

Quotes and resource lists

Often websites create lists of resources at an end of an article, blog or for key topics. If you have a relevant comment that you think could add to the story or perhaps an article with top tips that you think would be a beneficial resource for the authour’s article then you can contact the authour to ask about being included in the article or offer a guest post. It’s of mutual benefit for both parties if it is relevant information for their audience as long as it’s not salesy.

Guest blogs

Keep an eye on relevant articles and blogs written by people in your industry. Can you add comments to support the story and show your appreciation? This can then lead to you asking if they are interested in a guest blog from you. Research who the key influencers are in your industry to make sure you follow on social media to keep an eye on what they are writing about.

SEO to action now

Link building is a long-term SEO strategy. If you’re embarking on optimising your website now that we are all working more closely with the virtual world, here’s a few resources at the end of the article with some top tips that you can implement now before setting out on the longer link building strategy.

Initially check the internal links you have on your website already. You may find you need to add more links to keywords – words and phrases that you want to be found for. Make sure that these links lead to your core ‘pillar’ pages. Think of it this way, if you visit a website you want seamless navigation so by placing relevant links throughout the page will help you find things quickly.

Also, ensure you have completed as much detail as you can on your Google My Business page. Continue to add images and blog content to it moving forward.

What you’ll find by actioning things like reviewing the content on your website, creating an online persona and completing any missing technical SEO on the backend such as meta descriptions, you will have set yourself up exceedingly well to get link building further.

Search Engine Optimisation resources:

Blog as part of content marketing strategy

Why blog?

07/19/202104/07/2020 by scmarketing

We work with a wide range of clients including those within the accounting sector. Often when we meet to discuss initial marketing proposals, a blog is far from the agenda. People are under the misconception that blogging is for… ‘bloggers’. There’s this misconception that a blog is about polished lifestyles and food! In this blog we aim to set the record straight and give small business owners more insight into the purpose behind a blog.

Whilst your content is essential to attract your target audience, blogs are essentially about your blog fitting into your marketing strategy in particular, Search Engine Optimisation (SEO).

Now is a good time to review your business website. If you don’t already have a blog page, then these points will help you to understand the purpose of the page and its importance in helping your website rise in search rankings. If you already have a blog, then there’s some tips for content that could help your overall digital marketing plan.

A blog forms part of your content marketing

A blog is an important page on your website to provide tips, advice, guides, and offers. All your content is aimed at supporting your target audience as well as positioning you as a thought leader in your sector.

But that’s not all. Content that you post on your blog helps to keep your website fresh, frequently. The strategic inclusion of keywords – phrases that you want to be found for in search – will help search engines find you. And, because you are posting content regularly it helps search engines see that you are ab authority in your field.

Red more about optimising your content with keywords in our blog; What SEO agencies should offer London firms.

See, there’s a little more to it than fancy coffee pics!

Content marketing plan

Create a content marketing plan to help you schedule when you will write a blog and on what topic.

To help your creativity, initially think of key dates in the year that you can use as a hook. If you’re an accounting firm, then list out key dates for tax return deadlines within the year; the Budget and so forth. Also include exhibitions you may be attending or charitable events you are involved with so that your audience gets an all-round look at your firm. This will help you schedule timely reminder blogs for your audience.

Use news articles as a hook – often referred to as a news jack. Or if there’s some research just published of relevance to your target audience you could write a comment piece on it and why your prospective customers or existing clients should take note. A word of warning on this though, always make sure to reference any source in full and add backlinks to the original article or report.

Internal and external website links

Backlinks are all about helping your website increase its domain authority and appearance in search. Blogs are a great way to add backlinks to your website. You can add links back to key ‘pillar’ pages within your website as well as adding links to external websites. Not only that, the aim is to have backlinks reciprocated.

The more you write, the more thought leadership authority you accrue with search engines, this will help you be sought for backlinks too. Now this is a long-term SEO strategy as it takes time to build up a catalogue of good quality content and a lot of work to seek out opportunities that you could provide comment on with external sites.

So, your quick wins are that once you’ve checked your own website has relevant links to other pages on your website is to check any websites that you already have a mention on and whether they have a backlink to you. For example, are you a member of an industry association, speaker or exhibitor at an event or formed a partnership with a supplier? Do these sites have the correct website mentions in place and importantly a hyperlink back to your accountancy website?

Google My Business

Always make sure you have completed your Google My Business page. Continue to update it with your latest blogs. This also adds another backlink to your website. Plus, it tells this dominant search engine first-hand all about your business which helps you be found by prospects as well as provide ongoing support to your current client base.

Read more on the benefits of completing your Google My Business page in our blog – have you told search engines you exist?

Titles and keywords

And now for the website backend tech SEO. Make sure you always complete the H1 / H2 header tags as well as meta title and alt tags when you upload your blog.

If you partner with a website designer and developer, then they will be able to guide you on this. If you’ve not updated your website in a long time and have a Content Managed System (CMS) such as WordPress, you should be able to look at the backend and complete these yourself.

Equally if you wanted a Free Website Review, which will highlight areas that can be updated such as missing header tags or meta titles, then get in touch with us and we can run this report for you.

Our blog 9 tips for optimising your website has some further tips on SEO for inbound marketing.

Smart Cow Marketing is a digital marketing agency providing services for a range of clients including marketing for accountants.