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8 tips to maximise the content of one blog

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With many businesses bearing the brunt of lockdown such as hospitality, leisure and retail closures, any additional cost is a major consideration. Whilst businesses are aware of the importance of marketing to stay front of mind, there’s a few things you can do to be efficient with your marketing and therefore be as cost-effective as possible.

So, you’ve written your blog and uploaded it to your website. Then what? Be efficient with the marketing content you already have.

Here’s a simple process to follow so that you maximise one blog once you have uploaded it to your website.

  1. Write a social media post. Add a link back to the blog post and share on social media with an image (your own image or purchase a stock image – do not use google images as these carry copyright).
  2. Don’t just leave it at writing one social post. Review the content of your blog and break that down into bite size chunks. You’ll find that you can schedule a number of different social posts simply by lifting a few sentences from the same blog and sharing them on social. You may have to tailor them slightly for the different social channels you use, but it will take you a lot less time.
  3. Get your employees and colleagues to also re-share what you post on social media to spread the news through your social network.
  4. Conduct a poll question relating to your blog. This is particularly good on LinkedIn as it engages well with your network and allows them to comment.
  5. If your business is on Instagram or Facebook, share the social post to your Stories to highlight that you have a new blog post. The gifs on Instagram are great for stand out.
  6. Add a summary of the blog as an update to your Google My Business page with a ‘learn more’ button with a link back to your blog. And, if you are on any other listing directories such as associations or event websites, check if they have the option of adding regular updates from you as this all helps with link building.
  7. Send an email to your marketing database. If you have an email database then start to utilise that. Create a template for an email. Platforms like Hubspot allow you to create great looking email templates. Then use the content from your blog in your email. Only use a small part of it to entice recipients to click to read more.
  8. If you want to build on your creative skills, why not create a short video with information taken from your blog? You can chat further with us about video creation if you want to know more about what you could do.

Well, we hope this gives you a few ideas to take advantage of for the next blog you write.
Remember that all this activity will help with search engine optimisation (SEO). With the blog itself ensure you have keywords included (the words and phrases that you want to be found for in search engines).

For social posts, email marketing and business directory uploads always ensure that you have included a link back to your blog. Link building with quality links also helps show search engines that you are a thought leader as well as improves brand awareness and lead generation.

Get in touch with Smart Cow, we provide digital marketing for accountants and a helping hand with content marketing for websites, alongside kick starting your SEO strategy.

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SEO mistakes to avoid

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Your website is the centre of your digital world and right now it is the go to place for most people searching for products and services as COVID-19 has ushered along digital transformation at some pace. So, being found online is crucial.

This is why Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is a key element of your inbound marketing strategy. SEO will help generate website traffic through various tactics such as completing meta descriptions and H1 tags. As well as writing fresh and relevant content for your website in the form of a blog with researched keywords and good navigation including internal links. The list goes on (we’ve listed further resources at the end of the article for you to tap into to help with your SEO campaigns) however for the purpose of this blog we wanted to highlight what to avoid so that your website is not negatively impacted.

Link building is an important part of an SEO strategy. External links helps indicate to search engines that your website should be visited as they indicate importance and relevance. 

However, these links need to be relevant and from trustworthy sources to build trust with prospects. So, the better quality of link from a trusted website is more likely to indicate to a search engine that you are a good quality website to show up in search results.

So, the main thing to remember is that it is quality over quantity. Understand and know the referring domains.

More on how link building can improve optimisation.

Don’t do nothing

It’s worth remembering that a search engine should be held in high regard like any other visitor to your website. So, you need to indicate to all visitors that you are current, relevant, knowledgeable and most importantly that you are open for business.

If the content on your website is out of date this will impact on where you appear in search engine results pages. The more people that view your fresh and unique content will help indicate to search engines that you are a good quality source of information relevant to return in results pages.

Update your website frequently, add new blogs, images, links and downloads.

Don’t copy content

Don’t infringe copyright. Respect fellow businesses. You are all trying to do the best you can to attract more customers. With blogs being a key part of an SEO strategy, you will ideally be uploading at least 2-3 blogs a month and much more if you have the time. But your content needs to be unique. You can’t copy an article as you will infringe copyright laws and incur penalties. Not only that, a search engine will see that it is duplicate and plagiarised content and this will go against you with organic search results.

Ultimately you are the thought leader in your field so talk about what you know. Help solve your customers and prospects challenges by giving them tips and advice. All the things you know about. This then comes from the heart and makes your brand authentic and trustworthy. Plus, with good quality unique content, this will help you in search engine results pages (SERPs).

Poor meta descriptions

The meta descriptions are ways to assist search engines in understanding what the page is all about. They can also provide the valuable first few lines in a search result listing – that little paragraph under the title that you can see when your search is returned to you. By not completing this you are failing to let search engines and potential visitors understand what they can read about on that specific page. So, when you complete it on the backend remember to include keywords relating to what is on that page.

Keyword stuffing

So, you’ve established your list of relevant keywords – those phrases that you want to be found for in search engines results pages. You’ve created a content marketing schedule of future blogs and you start to upload them to your website with keywords included. What you must not do is stuff that content with keywords. It will be repetitive, lack thought and knowledge. The content will not engage, it will not be insightful and therefore will end up with your bounce rate increasing. And, most importantly, search engines don’t like it.

Search engines will then penalise you for creating an article that is not relevant  to your business. Readers might also feel cheated into reading a pointless article and this will go against you with search engines and lost prospects!

So, be thoughtful with your content and remember quality over quantity. It’s more important to have a quality read with one keyword over anything else as people will return to read more, people will share your article which will encourage new website visitors.

Broken links in your website can have a detrimental effect on your website’s performance. Keep tabs on this through tools such as Semrush which can alert you to broken links. Fix them as soon as you can to avoid confusing search engines and creating a poor customer experience.

Not set up for local SEO

Make sure that you are set up on Google My Business – you may as well tell the biggest search engine that you are open for business, your website, contact details, address latest updates and offers. This will point back to your website providing a quality link. Repeat this process with other directories and make sure y our contact details are consistent. Watch our video alternative directories to Google My Business to help with your SEO.

SEO Croydon

So, you’ve got the idea of what to avoid. SEO is about attracting leads which includes search engines. In a nutshell, it’s important to create quality, unique and relevant content for your website to help improve your online presence in organic search and help drive traffic to your website.

We can work with you on your digital marketing strategy including a mix of tactics such as, web design, SEO services, social media management, Pay Per Click (PPC), email marketing and CRM – read more about our marketing services.  

SEO agency resources

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How to write a blog

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There are so many distractions these days from email through to social media or website pop-ups therefore if you have written a blog on your website how do you get people to stay on your website to read it? Here’s some of our tips for writing engaging blog content for your website to help with Search Engine Optimisation (SEO).

What should you write in a blog?

When you write a blog the first thing you, or your SEO agency, should always think about is who is your target audience. Therefore, thinking of that typical customer or client will help you tailor your content specifically to them. It also helps to make your content engaging and personable.

You then need to write about topics that will help your target audience. Solve their challenges for them. A great way to get ideas for this is to think about the questions that clients ask you. Then that simply becomes the title of your blog. This is a great SEO tactic as it tells search engines exactly what to expect on that page.

Keywords and phrases

We need to mention keywords and phrases – don’t be put off by thinking it’s some kind of jargon. It’s as simple as thinking about what your customers will search for to try and find your products or services. This will help you create a list that you can refer back to when you write about a topic. Check to see if you can add in relevant keywords to help with SEO campaigns.

While we can get technical and look into keyword volume of searches and keyword difficulty score (which Smart Cow can help with), an initial list created manually will also help in the long run.

Get your point across quickly

Once you have your topic and title established then it’s time to get to work with the content. You may find it easier to break your blogs up with subheadings. If you think of these first then you already have the structure of your blog.

With your opening paragraph, you need to get to the point fairly early on. By giving an indication of what is on your blog, this will give more reason for the website visitor to read on to get more of the details.

Blog content

Keeping your reader engaged is the most important thing as this is what keeps people on your website for longer. It also means visitors return and share articles on social media to help attract more people to your website.

Here’s a few tips to consider to help you write engaging content:

  • Pose a question to move the content along and in another direction
  • Use subheadings to break up content – it’s easier on the eye and makes for a more engaging web page
  • Make content topical by tapping into relevant national days
  • Reference relevant research and statistics – but don’t forget to reference your source

Call to action

Once you’ve drafted the blog, remember the point of it. Ultimately you want people to do something as a result. So, add a call to action in your final paragraph, for example:

  • Download our ebook
  • Contact us for more information, email us on…
  • Get involved by registering at….
  • If you want to attend the networking session, contact…
  • Get a free website review

Free resources to help you write your next blog

Digital marketing Croydon

We are a Croydon based digital marketing agency offering SEO services including blog writing, keyword research, local SEO, Google Ad campaigns to help improve your online presence and visibility online as your SEO experts.

Get in touch for a consultation or a free website review.

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Get your website seen with a blog page

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If there’s one thing you do differently in 2021, we recommend you add a blog page to your website. For those that have a blog webpage already, then make sure you regularly update what you got.

The reason being is that your website is the centre of your digital world – all external links, such as from your social media channels, point potential leads back to your website. So, having a blog is a great page for you to add fresh content too. And, it’s this content which holds the secret to optimising your website in search engines results pages.

A blog provides a place to add timely news items about new products or services but most importantly a place to offer advice to answer the challenges faced by your potential customers. This is what your leads are really interested in. As you add this content to your website think about what people will be searching for in search engines, such as Google, as this will form the basis of your keywords research and what you will look to include moving forward. Read more about keywords here.

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Engaging blog content

You have less than 15 seconds to engage visitors and give them the information they want before they will bounce right off your website. So, make sure that the topics you choose are of interest to your target audience. Offering a free template to download or an ebook is another attractive offer.

Remember that a blog is about being informative and about your brand becoming a thought leader in its field.

Cover topics which highlight your expertise. A case study is a great way to illustrate this.

Keep content clear and concise. 

The aim is to add value to help people solve a very specific problem. 

Write blogs that answer their questions. The goal is to optimise that post to appear in related searches by including keywords.  

Without regular, new and relevant content your website is less engaging. Your target audience is less likely to stay on your website or revisit in the future.

There’s also some backend tactics to get used to when you upload a blog. Make sure you add a meta description, image alt tag and H1 headings for starters. Get into that routine and you’re really helping with ongoing search engine optimisation. Read more about SEO and why you should consider it here.

Once you have posted your blog live then repurpose the content to create loads of social media posts. Remember to add the link to the blog or a relevant page on your website as this helps guide leads back to your website and it’s also highly regarded by search engines.

Free website review

Why not take advantage of our FREE website review so you can kick start the new year with the goal of updating your website to get it truly optimised. Then you can simply concentrate on adding regular blogs to your website to keep it engaging and help to generate leads.  

SEO agency Croydon

If you would like to discuss SEO services incorporating content marketing as part of a wider long term digital marketing strategy for your business then book a consultation with us.

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