The user experience of a website is fundamental to growth

05/03/202409/10/2019 by scmarketing

Have you ever wondered why customers leave their shopping cart without completing? Or only visit your homepage without clicking through to other pages? This could all be down to the user experience: how easy it is to navigate; how relevant and; how up to date the content is. Sounds simple, but if you don’t get it right it can easily impact on sales and business growth.

We’ve gathered together some top tips on what to consider if you’re embarking on a website update or totally new design.

Looking good

It goes without saying that your website needs to look good. It needs to reflect your brand, be image led and enticing to potential and existing customers. But it’s not all about looks. We’ve previously spoken about developing a target persona for your brand and ensuring that your website takes into account your target audience with appropriate keywords, phrases and imagery!

Ultimately you want to speak in the same language as your customers do and get across why your services or products are right for them. It’s also worth noting that you want to solve their problems so think about how your product and services can do this.

Easy to navigate

So, you may have got people to visit your website, but you need to keep them there and you haven’t got long to make an impression. If someone can’t find what they want in 3 seconds, especially if they’ve come to you because of a well worded social media post or Pay Per Click Campaign, you will lose them. Websites need to be basic and simple and if you’ve said in a marketing campaign to ‘click here’ about a certain product or service, then a customer wants to see exactly that.

Make sure you have very clear call to action buttons and arrows to draw the eye to areas of the website. Bold and contrasting colours can also help with navigation.

Bounce rate

If you’ve failed the 3 second rule, then customers are likely to ‘bounce’ off your website. When we start working with clients, we do an analysis of their website which tells us the current bounce rate – we then work with you to tailor messaging so that this rate lowers over time and converts. But you will find it hard to tailor messaging if you haven’t done the process of creating a target persona. Read our blog on how you should develop this persona for your business.

The Path Forward

The relationship between a well-designed website and business growth is unequivocal. Enhancing user experience is an investment in your brand’s future, necessitating a thoughtful approach to design, content, and technology. If the prospect of undertaking a user experience redesign seems daunting, professional assistance can provide the expertise needed to transform your website into a potent tool for engagement and conversion.

We encourage all businesses to critically assess their online presence and consider the profound benefits of prioritising user experience. The potential rewards, in terms of customer satisfaction and business growth, are truly limitless.

Searching for why google reviews can help business growth

Why a Google Review can help business growth

10/18/201909/05/2019 by scmarketing

At the core of a digital marketing campaign is the need to drive traffic to your website and in turn win new clients or clinch that sale. But to help with brand awareness and to build a trusted brand, growing the number of Google Reviews you have is one of the most cost-effective ways to help achieve this.

In our previous blog, we spoke about one of the first things you need to do when you create your website is to help search engines find you. So, setting up a Google My Business page – which is free – is a great way to get more information and brand awareness out there about yourself. It’s also another way of letting Google know you exist. And, as part of this page you can welcome reviews from clients and customers.

Let’s take a step back for a moment. Think about how you approach buying goods for yourself or perhaps booking a holiday. How often do you look at comments from people who have stayed in the hotel you are looking to book? It’s amazing how this can influence your booking isn’t it?

Therefore, in much the same way, encouraging people to leave reviews on your Google My Business page should become part of your conversation with clients. These reviews can help build awareness of your brand as a trusted leader in your sector.

So, if you have received feedback from a happy customer ask if they can complete a Google review. You can also share your reviews via your social media channels to ensure people know about the good service that customers have experienced.

Book a Practice Growth Session

You can explore setting up your own Google My Business page yourself for free. If you have any questions or would like to delve a little deeper into ways to grow your business then why not book a Practice Growth Session with us? We tailor these sessions for businesses keen to grow and ready to invest in a digital marketing campaign to achieve their goals. A digital marketing agency based in Croydon, we will arm you with the fundamental details for you to be able to implement a campaign to help you grow. You can book a session with us for £95.

Get in touch for more information.

Laptop searching for inbound marketing agencies in London

Have you told search engines you exist?

10/12/202009/02/2019 by scmarketing

Grow your business with Google

To help your business grow, you need to tell people that you exist. These days your shop window is a virtual one – it’s your website. However, just like a bricks and mortar premises your website needs to be found, it’s just that these days that means via a search engine. Just as you would have a sign on your window advertising your products and services you need to let people know where you are.

One of the first things you need to do when you have created your website, or if you are embarking on a digital marketing campaign to grow your business, is to make sure you’ve told search engines that you exist. The most popular way to do this is initially is by populating Google My Business with your company details.

About Google My Business

This is a free tool to use and well worth the time and effort to complete. Google is one of the most popular search engines after all, so you may as well let them know about you by filling out as much about your company as you can.

The very basics to complete are your website URL, opening times, address, contact numbers and email addresses and a short paragraph about your company. But it is worth exploring what else you can complete as this will all help Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and your company being seen in search, further optimising your website.

For example, you can add ‘posts’ to your Google My Business page. This allows you to add offers and event details with clear call to action buttons. It’s worth noting here that you don’t need to create fresh content for this you can just edit one of your blogs or offer from your website and repurpose for Google My Business as part of your routine SEO work.

Images say a thousand words and you have the ability to add imagery to your Google My Business page too.

A regular look at your ‘insights’ on this page will reveal the most popular search queries for your business by unique users. These insights can also assist you in keeping the keywords and phrases you use up to date.

Reviews

These business pages are also a great way for you to ask customers to leave reviews. When people look for a product or service they are comforted by reviews from people and this could be the difference between whether someone clicks on your link or the person with a populated Google My Business page.

Book a Practice Growth Session

Google My Business is just one of the tactics we recommend that our clients implement. If you would like to find out more, our Practice Growth Sessions are tailored for businesses keen to grow and ready to invest in a digital marketing campaign to achieve their goals. As an inbound marketing agency in London, arming you with the fundamental details for you to be able to implement a campaign to help you grow is well within our abilities. You can book a session with us for £95.

Keep an eye on our blog for more tips on growing your business with a well targeted digital marketing campaign.

Tools to help you grow your business

10/18/201908/27/2019 by scmarketing

Unlock business growth

Name: Smart Cow Marketing
Price range: $$$

As part of our Practice Growth Sessions, we work with clients to unlock the tools at their disposal to help them lay the groundwork to grow their business. If you’ve been following our series of blogs about these sessions, you’ll see that we’ve already covered quite a few pointers to help you build your digital marketing campaign. In this blog, we focus on brand collateral that you have. It’s about delving into the tools at your disposal to grow your business, so you have a clear picture of what gaps you may need to plug.

What do you have in place?

Here’s a checklist to help you discover what you already have:

What processes and guidelines do you have in place?
Do you have a company logo or brand guidelines?
What are your company values and vision?
What are the strengths of your team? What hidden strengths can they bring to the table?

Having this background to hand will help you form a well targeted marketing plan as messaging will be aligned to your values and visions. It will also shed light on whether you need to relook at your branding to ensure it has the right look and feel to reflect your vision, services and target audience.

Investing in marketing

Once you’ve made these notes, think about your annual turnover and your current and potential marketing investment. The reason being is that if you wish to grow your business you will need to commit to investing in marketing. This is generally 10% of a targeted revenue.

Book a Practice Growth Session

You can use our blog series to help formulate your marketing plan as we run through all aspects of what you should do to prep a digital marketing campaign from understanding who your target audience is to listing keywords you want to be found for. If you would like some help with this then we’re running Practice Growth Sessions where we can help navigate you through these steps and tailor your digital marketing campaign. As digital marketers in Croydon, we are more than happy to lend you a hand in helping you grow your business.

Our sessions are for businesses keen to grow and ready to invest in a digital marketing campaign to achieve their goals. It will arm you with the fundamental details for you to be able to implement a campaign to help you grow.

Keep an eye on our blog for more tips on how to grow your business.