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What is SEO and why consider it?

08/19/202212/09/2020 by scmarketing

Your website is the centre of your digital world. Everything you do should lead back to it. Therefore, what it looks like, where it is found, how up to date it is and how easy it is to navigate are all crucial factors to keeping visitors on your website for longer therefore making it a success.

So, factoring in a tailored Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) campaign into your 2021 marketing strategy will help your business be seen online.

SEO is a collection of processes that make it better for a website to be found through the search engines. Most online searches start with a few words relevant to what a prospect is looking for. So, if you’re an ‘accountancy’ practice in ‘Guildford’ then you would likely be interested in your company showing up on page one of a search relevant to these keywords.

Website optimisation involves looking at how your website is built, the keywords within content on your website as well as understanding your target audience and their search behaviour. Armed with this background you can build a strategy to improve your rankings in the organic (non-ads based, natural) search results.

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Target audience

As part of your SEO strategy, you will need to think about who books your services and buys your products. If you don’t already know who your target audience is then take a look at our blog to help you create a persona.

Then make a review of your website and seen what updates you may need to make to content or imagery.

It may be a simple case of adding more call to actions, contact forms or changing content. However, if you think a new web design could be in order then drop us a line to discuss as we can also provide a website audit for you.

Keywords

Be specific with keywords for your business. Think about what your target audience would type in the search engine function to find what they are looking for. This is a great place to start to help you create a list of the keywords for your audience. We can help you build this list with reference to search volume and keyword difficulty so that you can factor in the right keywords to attract the quality leads.

Our blog on how to improve onsite SEO with keywords provides further insight.

Link building

As part of the ranking process, search engines consider the quality of links, awarding scores based on the usefulness and relevance of those links. Internal links can ease navigation within the website itself, so when you add a blog to the website make sure there’s at least 2-3 internal links included.

Getting your company details on directories is also useful to help with incoming links to your website. This provides an indication of how useful your content is to others. Less links will have an impact upon where you return in a search result for a given term.

We always recommend setting up your Google My Business page as it allows for you to post updates. Therefore, this is a simple repurpose of your own blog and provides a fantastic link back to your website.

Meta descriptions

Think about when you’ve recently searched online for something. You see a return of results where companies have great headlines and a paragraph of succinct copy that entices you to click the link instead of others. Behind the scenes you can create these paragraphs or meta descriptions on pages on your website – these are really good when it comes to blogs you may upload. Meta descriptions tell Google and other search engines exactly what each web page is about, what to display and how to display it in the results.

SEO Agency Croydon

By incorporating SEO into your marketing strategy, you can enhance brand perception and online presence as it helps your business rank better in search engines. This can help generate a better rate of enquiries due to improved visibility.

If you feel you need some support in getting your website Search Engine Optimised, then get in touch with Smart Cow Marketing. As an inbound marketing agency in Surrey we’re prepared to discuss your digital marketing needs further.

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Word in dictionary illustrating keywords

How to improve onsite SEO with keywords

12/02/202010/22/2020 by scmarketing

Keywords are essential for website optimisation and key to your onsite SEO strategy as well as Pay Per Click campaigns. But so often they seem to be veiled in mystery. In this blog we want to dispel any myths and give you a summary about what keywords are, why you should think about them and how they can help your website be seen in search engine results pages (SERPs).

When we refer to onsite SEO we mean Search Engine Optimisation. This is all about getting your website seen in the search engine results when someone searches for a product or service. It is about getting your business in the mix. While there’s a lot to think about with a complete holistic SEO strategy, here we’ll focus on keywords as this is something that you can work on yourself and you’ll soon find that your website benefits.

Quick website audit

Before you start thinking of key phrases conduct a quick review of your website to see where some gaps can be filled quickly. This will also help SEO campaigns. This will also act as a reminder of anything that is missing and needs changing.

So, firstly, we recommend you review all your website content to ensure that:

Your website is up to date for example, contact details, your team, images etc.
There are no broken links and you start link building. Add internal links to other pages on your website where you can. This all helps with ease of navigation and keeping people on your website as long as possible
Then consider adding a blog or news feed if you don’t already

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The reason for a blog is that once you have done your review of your website, even though you might be updating content with keywords on your services pages, about us or homepage, these webpages generally remain static. The reason for creating your list of keywords is that you add them to regular ongoing content that enables you to add fresh content to your website with relevant information for your target audience. Search engines are looking for regular, relevant content.

If you already have a blog, then check back to see when you last added any content and how often you do this. The frequency of adding content is just as important as those keywords. The more you use the keywords in fresh content, the more chance you have of being found by search engines and this will help you improve your organic search ranking.

Keywords – be specific

With keywords it’s all about being specific to your business. Think about what your target audience would type in the search engine function to find what they are looking for. This is a great place to start to help you create a list of the keywords for your audience.

Let’s take an accountancy practice as an example. If you are an accountancy firm based in Croydon then make sure that you regularly say this on your website. But also think of variations of the phrase and what else people may search for in relation to your accounting services for example, tax advice, self-assessment, payroll, corporate tax.

Then start to delve a little deeper. Business owners want to work with companies that offer knowledge and expertise, so you can’t just add words to a webpage without any substance. Search engines don’t look favourably when you ‘stuff keywords’ on a page so you need to make sure you have high quality content on your website and that inclusion of a good range of keywords enhances what you have written. Not only should the keywords be relevant to your business it is vital that content is relevant to the blog in question. If people click on your link in search it needs to ‘do what it says on the tin’ to avoid visitors leaving too soon.

So, if you’re an accountancy firm wanting to promote your payroll services in a blog you need to be giving tips and advice to your prospects and include further keywords to help search engines, and that will interest prospects further, for example:

online payroll
payroll system
real time information
chartered accountants
data security
HR solutions
pensions auto enrolment

Keywords with a few phrases are sometimes referred to as long-tail keywords. They may not produce the volume of searches but they are usually more relevant. Quality over quantity is good to remember.

Whatever your business, keep an eye on your competition. As part of your keyword research see what they are writing about and telling their customers. If you look at their meta descriptions, that paragraph that you can see when a company appears in a google search, this will give a good indication of keywords.

Header tags, meta descriptions

Here’s a few more quick actions you can implement that will help organic rankings.

When you write blogs you should also consider adding keywords in the headings and subheadings or H1 or H2 tags (you can ask your web developer about these H1/H2 tags, in a WordPress site it is usually easy to see how to change these but sometimes a nudge in the right direction can help).

Remember to complete your meta description with relevant keywords with what’s on that particular page of your website.

Digital Marketing agency Croydon

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

Further resources

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.

8 tips on setting up and maintaining SEO

04/06/202011/29/2019 by scmarketing

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.

So, this is when you may hear about the term Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). In a nutshell, SEO is a marketing strategy about a set of processes that make it better for a website to be found through search engines and build your online presence so that you rank higher in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs). Here’s our top tips on setting up and maintaining SEO to help your business rise in organic search.

Know your audience that you’re marketing to: For this you need to create an online persona. Think about the goals or challenges of your target audience. Start with their job role, imagine their personal goals such as business growth, saving the business money or a future promotion. Then imagine what challenges they face and start to note solutions for these and how your product or service can help them. Already you can start to see a personality form in front of you.
Draw up a list of your keywords and phrases: Website optimisation involves looking at how your website is built, the keywords within any content creation, on your website as well as understanding your target audience and their search behaviour. Armed with this background you can build a strategy to improve your rankings in the organic (non-ads based, natural) search results. Most online searches start with a few words relevant to what you’re looking for. So, if you’re an ‘accountancy’ practice in ‘Brighton’ then you would likely be interested in your company showing up on page one of a search relevant to these keywords.
Longtail keywords: Think about being very specific on keywords, which are sometimes given the term ‘long tail keywords’. For example, if you are searching for an accountant you may search for “Accountants in Croydon”, “Accountant for business start-up”, “Chartered accountant in Surrey,” or “Accountant for SME Tax Return”. It’s likely to be a lot easier to rank for this as there will be less competition, but, while you may see less traffic to your website as not many people will search such a specific phrase, it will help it to be targeted.
Meta descriptions: This is the short paragraph that sits beneath the company name when you conduct a search online. By completing the meta description when you upload content to your website, you can create a succinct paragraph which includes keywords to helpfully direct prospects to your website. Meta descriptions are a website’s way of telling Google and other search engines exactly what each of your pages are about, what to display and how to display it in the results.
Alt tags: Complete the description of your image in the ‘Alt Tag’ box when you upload it to your website. You can be descriptive about what’s in the image but also relate back to a relevant keyword if you can.
Headings: Think about whether you can add keywords to your blog title. Or at least in your subheadings. The h1 tag is also key and should not be missed on any page as it should contain information about the content of the page. Search engines check the keyword consistency between the header tag and the content on the rest of the page.
Try local search: Decide on the geographical areas you want to target to find new clients and use that for your future digital marketing campaigns. Think about your content on your website, is it specific for the location you’re targeting? Have you mentioned that you are offering a service for people in a specific area anywhere on your website?
Populate 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 number and email as well as 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.

Get in touch with us at Smart Cow today for you Free Consultation on improve SEO in Croydon and beyond.