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The user experience of a website is fundamental to growth

12/22/202409/10/2019 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.

Chess pieces relating to digital marketing strategy

Do you know who your competition is?

12/22/202408/09/2019 by scmarketing

With over 1.5 billion websites you need to make your business stand out from the crowd. But how can you do this if you don’t know who your competitors are and what they’re doing?

What do your competitors offer?

Before setting out on any marketing campaign, drawing up a list of key competitors and the services and products they offer is essential. This not only means you know what you’re up against, but it means you can make your offers stand out which in turn will help increase awareness and traffic to your website.

For example, if you think of yourself with a bricks and mortar premises, if you were opening a café you would want to know what competitors nearby are offering so you can introduce something new, or make the decision to offer a loyalty card or perhaps offer different food. Doing this research also helps you understand the type of traffic you might expect into your new shop.

So, back then to the digital world, it’s no different. Who you attract to your website is not just about putting money behind a Pay Per Click advertising campaign, it’s about understanding how you can attract customers to visit your site by clicking on that campaign in the first place. Understanding what your competitors are offering will help.

Although don’t just research your competition. You need to know your target audience, create an online persona, pinpoint your geographic areas and get a core list of keywords and phrases you want to be found for. It comes back to having brand consistency. We’ve talked about these other aspects in our blog and our overview will give you good insight into what goes in to planning your own digital marketing campaign.

Book a Practice Growth Session

If you want some help formulating your marketing campaign, our Practice Growth Sessions are tailored for businesses keen to grow and ready to invest in digital marketing 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. You can book a session with us for £95.

Read more tips for building a great website as part of a well targeted digital marketing campaign.

Source: Internet Live Stats

Accountants – are you looking to grow your practice?

12/22/202405/21/2019 by scmarketing

If you’re looking for growth in your accountancy practice then considering investment in marketing could be the approach to bring prospects to your door. But, with the host of marketing tactics out there, where do you start and what’s the best approach?

Unfortunately, there’s no one answer. But there’s a whole host of tools at your disposal to get awareness of your practice out there. Here’s the lowdown on what you need to consider.

Website

First and foremost – is your website doing its job? What we mean by this is that you need to look at your website and question whether there are succinct facts about what you do? Is the content relevant to your target audience? And, are there clear calls to action to get that contact coming your way?

Google My Business

Then you need to make sure your website is seen. Make sure you’ve populated Google My Business with details of your firm. This is free to do and at the very least get the basic information up there about your company, such as website, telephone number, contact email and opening times, as this all helps with SEO and it’s another place that you can be seen. Once you have the basic company details uploaded, explore other options available such as adding offers, your news and imagery as well as asking for clients to leave reviews. Again, this all helps with your organic search rankings.

Pay Per Click

Pay Per Click (PPC) is a great way to help increase traffic to your website. If you are trying PPC – of which Google Ads are the most popular – then getting your website up to date and populated with relevant content is so important. For a PPC campaign you will want a dedicated page on your website so that when people you are targeting click on an ad they land on a page with relevant content and because it is relevant this will help lower the cost of the ads.

Content

Regular and relevant content through blogs on your website, email marketing, social media posts etc., will help position you as thought leaders and build your brand. But don’t forget images and video content. Be factual with content offer tips, industry statistics and insight. Search engines also trawl through your website pages all the time looking for fresh and relevant content so this tells the search engines that you are the place to go to.

Social media

Then there’s social media. Do you have presence on any social channel? Now you may think that Facebook is just for seeing who ate and drank what but actually having a Facebook page for your company that is up to date, even if you don’t post much from it, means that you have visibility on one of the largest search engines.

The best channels for accounting firms are LinkedIn and Twitter. With LinkedIn it’s worth remembering that you’re networking. It’s not about selling it’s about creating that business relationship. You connect with people to then be able to engage in the future to talk about products and services.

With a Twitter account your bio is a quick opportunity to showcase what services you offer. It’s worth having presence on this channel as your competitors will and it allows you the opportunity to share industry insight from accounting resources such as Accountancy Age.

Read our blog on the different social media platforms and how to use them for more insight.

Practice growth sessions

If you’re an accountancy practice looking to grow then why not book a practice growth session with us at Smart Cow.

Get in touch today via our online form or call on 020 3137 1826 or via saymoo@smart-cow.com

Top tips to consider for your website

12/22/202405/14/2019 by scmarketing

A website has so many similar characteristics to a bricks and mortar premises. It’s your main shop window so needs to look good, have up to date items on display on the homepage and most importantly when you step inside your ‘premises’, your website needs to be easy to navigate.

So, we’ve gathered a few tips on what to think about when embarking on refreshing your website or creating a new one.

The website basics

What type of website do you want? Does it need to be a simple brochure website that showcases what services you offer with a clear call to action? Or do you want a more interactive website with the ability to capture data, download functionality or e-commerce capabilities?

Basically, your website is your shop window – so getting this right is key. Ensuring you have a menu bar with easy navigation and clear call to actions to help your visitor and keep them on your website. Which brings us on to our next point.

Website bounce rate

Whether you already have a website or you’re looking to create a new one you’ll be wanting to manage your bounce rate and keep that low. A high percentage means that people are leaving your website very quickly usually because content is not relevant or the website is not easy to navigate. If people don’t stay on your website for long this is unlikely to lead to conversion.

This leads us on to our next point about content and having a clear call to action to help reduce bounce rates.

Call to action

Ultimately you want people to sign up to your services or buy your products, so tell people what to do when they reach your site. Make buttons, web links or text links obvious so that a visitor to your website is drawn to a specific landing page with all the key detail needed to attract them to your offering. In short. This means making sure you have clear ‘download now’ buttons or ‘sign up to our newsletter’ or ’subscribe now’ text.

Blog

Call to actions are also often used in inbound marketing activity such as through social media posts which entice people to visit a website via reading the latest blog. Blogs are a key part of inbound marketing campaigns. Blogs can help build awareness of the brand, increase traffic to the website, lead generation and position you as an authority in your field which helps build trust.

Attract and engage visitors

We build websites that are designed to attract and engage visitors as well as be the centre of your digital world. If you’re looking to attract, engage and convert your potential clients, get in touch with us and chat about your website requirements.