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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.

Top tips for calls to action

04/15/202004/06/2020 by scmarketing

Calls-to-action (CTA) help drive people to your offers. If your CTAs aren’t effective at capturing people’s attention and persuading them to click, then it makes the offer useless.

CTAs can be used on product pages (non-landing pages), in display ads, email, social media and anywhere you can market your offer. But not all CTAs are created equal. In a world where every brand is fighting for attention, it’s critical that prospects choose your offer over your competitors.

CTA’s are a key part of your content marketing strategy and overall marketing plan. Here are some tips to creating effective marketing CTAs that get the clicks.

Call to action where the eye can see

Calls-to-action do best “above the fold” – the space where your web page is viewable to the user without having to scroll down. According to heat map analysis, anything “below the fold” will only be viewed by 50% of people – your potential customers – who visit your page. Doubling impressions on your CTAs can significantly increase your lead count.

Be clear

Be clear and specific in your call to actions about what you want a visitor to do. Don’t be clever. If you’re giving away a free guide, say “Download our FREE guide to…” and explain the title of the guide. If you’re hosting a free webinar, say “Register for our FREE webinar on…” so that people registering will be your target market and therefore quality leads.

Your topics should clearly convey a compelling benefit of downloading or registering to join the webinar. This elevates your call to action from the standard “Download Now” or “Get a Free Article” as the full description helps to make your CTA’s much more specific.

Use contrast to make CTA stand out

A call-to-action is meant to stand out, so if your CTA blends in too much with your website design, no one will notice it. You want as many visitors to land on that call-to-action as possible, so use contrasting colours to make the CTA stand out, and more importantly, use design to make it clear it is a clickable call-to-action.

Link your CTA to a dedicated landing page

This tip might seem minor, but it’s incredible how often businesses miss this opportunity. For a successful marketing campaign, calls-to-action are meant to send visitors to a dedicated landing page where they receive a specific offer such as the download of a guide or a template.

Do not use CTAs to drive people to your homepage. Even if your CTA is about your brand or product (and perhaps not an offer like a download), still send them to a targeted landing page that is relevant to what they are looking for. If you have the opportunity to use a CTA, send them to a page that will convert them into a lead.

Promote offers on product pages

CTAs shouldn’t be one size fits all. If your company offers various products or services, you may want to consider creating a different offer for each of them. Then you can place CTAs linking to each offer on the website pages that are most relevant to that offer.

Thank-you pages

Even if someone completes a form on your website (thus they’ve converted as a lead), don’t stop there. Increasing engagement is a top priority for marketers so that prospects turn into loyal fans therefore targeted and personalises marketing communication is essential to maintain engagement. Once someone reaches a “thank you page,” the page that a visitor arrives on after completing a form, use that space as an opportunity to promote more offers and helpful content for your target audience.

These tips are taken from our detailed ebook – 30 Greatest Lead Generation Tips.

Find out more about marketing your business.

What is lead generation marketing?

05/29/202004/03/2020 by scmarketing

A lead is a person who has indicated interest in your company’s product or service in some way, shape, or form. As a lead, you’d hear from a business or organisation with which you’ve already opened communication from, instead of getting a random cold call from someone who purchased your contact information.

The lead generation process starts with a visitor discovering your business through one of your marketing channels, such as your website, blog, Ad or social media page.

That visitor then clicks on your call-to-action (CTA) taking them through to a landing page on your website that’s designed to capture lead information in exchange for an offer.

What’s key to your lead generation marketing is the different channels that you can utilise to help start the lead generation process. Remember the information you provide is about providing your target audience – your ideal customers – with helpful tips, insight, a course or a template that will help with their business. Here’s an overview of what inbound marketing includes to help with lead generation.

Content Marketing

Content is a great way to guide users to a landing page. Typically, you create content to offer visitors useful, free information. You can include CTAs anywhere in your content. At the bottom of a post, in the hero image, or even on the side panel. The more interested a visitor is with your content, the more likely they are to click your CTA and move onto your landing page with specific instructions to ‘download an ebook’; ‘book a course’; ‘sign up to a newsletter’.

Blog

The great thing about using your blog posts to promote an offer is that you can tailor the entire piece to the end goal. So, if your offer is an instructional video on setting up Zoom video conferencing, then you can write a blog post to accompany that with background as to the benefits and step by step points.

Social Media Marketing

Social media platforms make it easy to guide your followers to take action, from the swipe up option on Instagram stories to Facebook bio links. You can also promote your offerings on your social posts and include a call to-action in your caption.

Email marketing

Email is a great place to reach the people who already know your brand and product or service. It’s much easier to ask them to take an action since they’ve previously subscribed to your list. Emails tend to be a bit cluttered, so use CTAs that have compelling copy.

Ads and Remarketing

The sole purpose of a Pay Per Click (PPC) ad such as Google Adwords is to get people to take action. Otherwise, why spend the money? If you want people to convert, be sure that your landing page and offer match exactly what is promised in the ad, and that the action you want users to take is clear. Read more about the benefits of PPC.

Creating a marketing plan can help you run a coordinated campaign. Our Beginner’s Guide to Inbound Marketing has loads more details for effective lead generation, download our free ebook.

Read more about inbound marketing strategy for your business.

Ebooks

Download The Beginner’s Guide to Inbound Marketing.

Why websites are essential for your firm?

06/16/202103/10/2020 by scmarketing

We may have become a little complacent in how we view websites these days, as they’ve just become part of life. However, we wanted to take a little step back just to remind you why websites are an essential part of your business and how they can generate quality leads and how Smart Cow can design and build you a strong online presence.

Website is your shop front

Your website is your sales pitch to potential clients, it must be appealing to the audience you’re looking to attract, providing visitors with the confidence that you will provide a good service or have a great product.

Just like a bricks and mortar shop front for your business, a website is just the same in the online world. Ultimately, it’s your shop. So, along with your shop name – or domain name in the online world – it’s worth remembering that this is something you own.

Like so many businesses today running their company on a Facebook page or Instagram account, this is a reminder that you don’t own those social channels! That’s why it’s always an idea to invest in your own website design to direct traffic to.

Website design and development

If you’re embarking on a new website or looking to refresh it, make sure you work with your website developer to design a site that will attract, engage and convert potential clients.

Make sure you have a good mix of images and video alongside your content. But also ensure that your site map is clear and call to actions are bold. You want to reduce bounce rate and encourage visitors to move around your website with ease.

We always talk about content being king. It tells the world who you are and what you do. But make sure what you write is succinct and to the point. Search engines will be looking for those key phrases you use to understand what each page on your website is about. It is important to also have links to all your social media platforms.

At Smart Cow we will work closely with you, from start to finish, and understand your needs, client base, and company goals in order to develop a bespoke website tailored to your needs.

Be seen online

Having a website is like your shopfront. And, like any shopfront, you have to get your shopfront seen to encourage footfall. In the online world there’s a few tactics that can help give you a little boost, if you’ve not already explored them.

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO): From backend tech to ensure that your images are the right size and completing Alt Tags, Meta descriptions and Titles, right down to the H1 and H2 headings. These can all help your website be seen by search engines as it helps to guide search engines about what the page is about.
Pay Per Click (PPC): A PPC ad campaign can give your website a nudge in the search pages as you pay for an ad that will appear on the front page of Google. However, a word of note, make sure that the landing page you pick for your ad is what people expect to see when they click on the ad. If you’ve sent a visitor to a page with incomplete or outdated information, you’re likely to lose the lead very quickly.
Google My Business: Complete your listing on this directory – it’s free after all. It gives you options to add updates such as blogs, events and imagery. As well as the basic information about your company’s services and contact details.
Blog: Add a blog or news page to your website in the main menu. It helps keep content fresh and is a great way to position you as a thought leader in your field.
In web development make sure you factor in the smaller screens; think about creating a mobile friendly website too!

Websites for accountants

Smart cow is a web design company in Croydon, creating and designing websites for accountants and local businesses. If you think it’s time you took your website to the next level as a lead generation magnet, get in touch with us to chat through your requirements and what professional web design services you are after.