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Is your website user experience up to scratch?

12/22/202409/10/2020 by scmarketing

The user experience (UX) plays a fundamental role in the success for any business’s online digital marketing strategy. The reason being is that if your UX is not up to scratch then you can easily lose a prospect who has just clicked on your website having found you in search.

With your website at the centre of your digital world, the user experience is vital to the business growth strategy of the firm. You need to keep your prospects on your website as long as possible to increase the chance of a sale or further engagement with you.

Make updates to your website

It’s worth always checking back on your website for a little refresh and update where necessary. Let’s face it when your website was designed and built you may have expanded the services you offer and be looking to add more interactive elements than you had previously. Therefore, taking a step back and looking with a fresh eye will help you see where gaps need to be plugged.

47% of website visitors view the products/services pages before any other sections of a website. With this in mind, take a look at one of your core product or services web pages and really question whether it does what it says on the tin.

Are you giving visitors to your web page enough information?
Are you giving top tips that they can take away that will help them grow their business?
Have you added internal links to aid navigation on your website further?
Have you included clear call to actions?

These are just some of the key questions to ask yourself to help update your website. But don’t forget the design – how does the website look? Is it time to update your images or add more? Be ruthless, as that’s what your potential customers will be doing! They could be telling their colleagues and friends about the website experience is.

Digital marketing plan

With competition rife, being critical about your website will help you in the long run. Add a website review to your core digital marketing plan to ensure that you regularly set time in the calendar to take a look over your site and make any necessary changes to content or design.

You’ll find this is good for SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) purposes too as regular updates with fresh content and relevant keywords are noted by search engines.

Website landing pages

With many customers now looking to conduct paid advertising such as with Google Adwords, the UX is also an intrinsic part of the success of a PPC campaign. Having a great landing page relevant to the ad makes for a much smoother customer journey. A lead wants just one click to find out exactly what they want.

Over half (51%) of people believe thorough contact information is the most important item missing from many company websites. So, don’t let this be missing when your lead clicks your ad!

Web design Croydon

We’re web developers in Croydon working with clients across Croydon and South London. We can provide a Free Website Review. The knowledge gained from this can guide on any website updates that may be required to help improve your online presence and turn enquiries into customers.

Whether you want a new website designed and developed or just need a refresh, we can guide on the best strategy for optimisation. We can create WordPress web design and content managed system so that you can be in control of your site once it is complete.

Why investment in organic search can help in a crisis period

12/22/202408/16/2020 by scmarketing

Increasing your online presence in organic search should be the top of any business inbound marketing strategy. If it wasn’t prior to 2020, then now more than ever it should be. As more people are relying on online search to shop, search for services and communicate, a Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) strategy is vital, especially to small businesses and start-ups, to help your website be seen in the noise.

With marketing budgets for print advertising taking a hit due to COVID, many marketers shifted to organic search.

The reason businesses opted for SEO is that it helps a business be seen online and helped maintain presence during the crisis. As many companies had to change business model, such as restaurants turning to takeaway services, if the online world wasn’t already important it became essential compared to a poster in an establishments window. The footfall had moved online therefore SEO provided the capability of helping businesses stand out.

Local search rankings

With three in five (59%) consumers saying they have used more local services during lockdown, the importance of visibility online is crucial. The Deloitte report goes on to say one in three (32%) used new brands, products or services that they hadn’t heard of during the lockdown.

Therefore, it’s clear that having presence online opens up new opportunities with prospects and increased brand awareness. By ensuring content on your website includes relevant local information ensures that you are targeted and can help you improve in local search engine rankings.

Organic search and your website

When people search Google, SEO or local search is a way for businesses being seen by local potential customers. This is where companies that invested in organic search at early lockdown reaped the benefits as an SEO strategy is long-term as you need to keep up refreshing your site with mew, original content and keywords to maintain and increase your rankings in search engine results.

This is because search engines look for triggers such as content on a website that is tailored for the area you’re targeting.

Backlinks from referring domains including your Google My Business listing and your social media networks, help to identify your business as quality and trustworthy for the search engines to return in results pages.

Search Engine Optimisation for increased online presence

The crisis period may have subsided for the moment as businesses are opening and services resuming for most sectors, but now is not the time to draw back from your online presence.

Continued investment in organic search is a cost-effective digital marketing tactic ideal for SME’s to continue to grow their online market share even in these unprecedented times.

Digital marketing and SEO company in Croydon

As an inbound marketing agency, we provide digital and inbound marketing for accountants and local businesses.

Marketing is all about building awareness of your products and services. With approximately 7 touch points needed for a sale or sign up to a service, it’s important to constantly get your message out there to increase brand awareness. That’s where digital marketing can help. From local SEO to blog page and social media engagement, there’s a mix of tactics to get your business out there – you just need to be targeted.

We work closely with local businesses in Croydon providing SEO services. Get in touch for a free consultation to see what digital marketing services are best for your business and how an SEO campaign could prove beneficial for your business.

‘Eat out to help out’ marketing tips for Croydon establishments

12/27/202407/23/2020 by scmarketing

From 3 August, the government’s Eat Out To help Out scheme will get underway. Restaurants, bars, pubs cafes – an establishment that provides an eat on site offer for diners – will be able to sign up to take part in the scheme. It means that on a Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday up until 31 August, diners can benefit from up to 50% off when eating or drinking soft drinks in participating places.

So, Croydon restaurants have you signed up to the scheme? If not, here’s the link to the details of what to do: Register your establishment for the Eat Out to Help Out Scheme.

But, once you are signed up, it’s important to spread the word. The government has promotional items you can utilise here.

At the moment, it may be less about passing trade as many people will be making plans first before going out. Therefore, while traditional marketing like signage in your restaurant window is important, we’ve got a few more online marketing tips you can implement swiftly to help spread your reach.

If you’ve not been doing much social media up until now, then now is the time to ramp up your presence with your social network.

Make sure you’re taking some fantastic shots of your amazing dishes and share on your social channels. Instagram and Facebook are great for foodie places. With Instagram it’s all about the look and there’s nothing more appealing than a plate of tasty food.

Make sure you tell people in your posts that you are part of the scheme. Give them an insight into your menu, anything new, your most popular dishes and your specials. Be descriptive with your post though. While a good image does say a thousand words, there’s no point posting a picture of a burger on your ‘specials’ menu that day which gives no indication of what’s in it. While you want engagement with people, try and make it a little easier for them to understand what’s in the picture in the first instance. This will help prevent you answering unnecessary questions – which can be time consuming and if not replied to in a timely manner could affect how people perceive you.

Re-confirm your opening times and update your profile with any new details.

Extend reach of your post by adding hashtags. Here’s some general Croydon foodie hashtags you might want to consider as well as some standard ones you should always think about:

#Croydon #EastCroydonCool #Croydonbar #Croydonpub #Croydonrestaurants #Croydonfoodies #Croydonfood #Croydonrestaurantquarter #Instafood #lovefood #foodstagram #foodpic #foodie

Note: don’t forget to hashtag what your food is! So, if it’s burgers or pasta – well, I think you get the picture!

What’s the story?

Don’t forget to utilise the Story function on Instagram and Facebook. This is another way to be seen by your followers as it stands out at the top of the feed.

Encourage diners to share their visit on social media and take pictures of food. If you’re on social media have your social handle visible in your restaurant and tell diners about it.

When someone shares a post and tags you in, you can use the little arrow function just below the image. This allows you to share this to your stories and you can thank the customer for their visit.

To create a story from scratch just click on ‘your story’ upload an image, then use the text function ‘Aa’ and write a brief message. For this campaign you could say ‘Eat Out to Help Out. Book Now.’ Or perhaps describe what mouthwatering food is in your image.

Or a simple way to create a story is once you have added a post to your Instagram feed, just click that arrow below your post and you can share to you story.

You can also search for the Eat Out to Help Out gif to liven up your story post. When you’re in story mode just click the square face and explore.

Website updates

If you have a website, make sure that all your contact details and menus are up to date.

On the homepage make an update to say that you are part of the scheme and encourage people to make a booking with a bold call to action button.

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

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. The last thing you want is an incorrect telephone number.

You can also add offers and updates to this page. So, tell people you are part of the discount scheme.

Remember to add imagery to your business page, this is a great resource for restaurants to showcase their dishes.

Remind diners to leave a review. Testimonials are a great way to encourage potential and returning customers.

Our blog, ‘have you told search engines you exist’ has tips about setting up your Google My Business page.

Email marketing

If you have an email distribution list, then now is a great time to start an email marketing campaign and distribute to potential customers on your database. Remember to be clear in your message, include a call to action to book now and ensure you have contact details visible.

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

Digital marketing Croydon

We’re a digital marketing agency in Croydon. We know the stomping ground and we’re here to support you. 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.

4 simple steps for SEO improvement

07/08/2020 by scmarketing

Time is of the essence when it comes to Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), as it is a long-term strategy. This sometimes puts people off from even starting to do anything in the first instance as it can initially be a daunting prospect.

So, we thought we’d gather some quick steps to help boost your organic rankings in search engine results. These aren’t necessarily quick wins – as it does take time for you to start seeing the benefit of website optimisation activity. But these are easy actions that can help you in the long-run as well as set a precedence and routine each time you upload any new content to your website.

SEO to boost your results in search engines

1. Meta titles and descriptions

Check that your meta titles and meta descriptions are complete on the backend.

Your meta title is the bold text you see for a website when you search for something online. To help you write the title think of it as if you are simply telling the person searching exactly what they will find on that page.

The title is also a key indicator to Google about the page content so with an explanatory title this can really help Google find the best matched pages for that search. Keep the meta title under 60 characters.

The meta description is the descriptive paragraph you will find directly under the title in search. Stick to between 120 and 158 characters so that the description doesn’t get cut off. Add in keywords you would want your business to be found for as this helps boost you in search too.

Depending on how many pages you have on your website, including blogs, this may take some time to do. But, now you are aware of its importance for SEO then set goals per week of completing a certain number of blogs until you have done them all. Then once you have achieved that, make the process completing the meta titles and descriptions part of your content marketing. So, when you write a blog ensure that you also think of the meta title/description at the same time.

2. Alt text / description

If you have images on your website, then these will want an alt description. This describes the page design and image content. These descriptions may well have already been completed at the web design and development stage. If not, just start to add the descriptions.

3. Fix broken links

Internal links help Google and your visitors understand your web page and navigate your website with ease.

However, there’s nothing worse than clicking a link that doesn’t work so now is the time to do a quick audit of your website and fix any links that are broken. If you don’t really have any links to other pages on your website, then we would recommend that you conduct this task as soon as possible. Make it easy for your visitor to get in touch with you and find useful information simply by adding in links.

For future blogs you write remember to always think of link building when you upload the blog to your website. Again add this to your process checklist.

Don’t forget – make sure you have links to your social media channels on your website.

4. Google My Business

Make sure your Google My Business page is up to date. If you don’t have one, then now is the time to create this. This is a quality directory on the most popular search engine so help Google find you.

SEO digital marketing agency

We’ve not touched on keyword research in this blog as we wanted to really give you those quick hit wins that you can conduct yourself for website optimisation.

Check out some of our previous blogs with more detail on SEO and keywords if you want to discover more.

If you need help on your digital marketing to kick start your SEO campaign and improve your online presence in search results then get in touch with us for your free consultation or a free website audit.   

We’re an SEO agency in Croydon specialising in SEO marketing for accounting firms and local businesses looking to grow with quality leads.