SEO

SEO archive by Smart Cow Marketing, digital marketing agency offering the best lead generation services in and around Croydon.

Responsive Web design croydon

Website design and development key steps

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With the second lockdown in place across England, now is an ideal time to review your website for necessary updates to help potential customers navigate it easily and remind people of your any new services.

We find that most of our clients looking for web design and development already have a website but it’s somewhat out of date, perhaps on an old WordPress website version that could do with some new plugins or complete overhaul. With that in mind, we thought we’d run through the key steps to website design and development so that you know what to ask for from your developer. Even if you are just refreshing your website it will provide you with important tips to consider.

1. Website purpose

Before you embark on creating your website you need to have its main purpose at the back of your mind so that the website can be developed to your requirements and business goals.

Do you just want a brochure website with an overview of services or do you need e-commerce functionality for people to purchase products? Either way, know what you want from the outset to prevent any additional costs at later stages to add functionality.

If you haven’t already established your target audience then now is a good time as this could greatly impact the look and feel of your website. Follow our tips to create an online persona for your business.

2. CMS website

We tend to design websites on a Content Managed System (CMS). This gives you, the business owner, the ability to update content yourself once the website is created.

3. Security

Ensure you have established security at early stages include an SSL certificate as well as an updated privacy policy. A captcha is another security measure to determine whether users are human which you can add to forms or logins. Captcha helps to prevent bots from accessing these areas.

4. Develop your sitemap

Work with your web developer to create a sitemap. Sometimes a suggested map can be included in a proposal if you have already had in depth discussions. However, once you instruct a developer to create your website then the site map will be the first task to agree as the whole structure of the website will be based on this. Your web developer can offer advice on making your website easy to navigate which helps with Search Engine Optimisation (SEO).

5. Website design

If you’ve followed step one of this process then you will already have established your website purpose. This needs to be communicated with your web designer along with providing an understanding of your company values and branding. This helps a web designer to get a good understanding of your business. Allowing them to create a mock design for you – usually a wire frame. This allows you to see the homepage and perhaps one or two core pages so you can understand how the other pages will look too.

6. Content marketing

It’s not called a Content Managed System (CMS) for the fun of it. Your website needs content. You will need to establish up front with your web designer what content you already have, whether you need content edited or written from scratch. This can impact on the overall cost. Usually content is transferred from the old website or provided. If you need help with this, then make sure you get a quote initially for content including imagery so that you are aware of any additional costs.

7. SEO

Check with your developer that the website will be optimised and mobile friendly. SEO includes activity such as completing the meta descriptions. alt tags and H1 headings.

As SEO is a long-term strategy, you will need to keep up with adding fresh content to your website with keywords to help it rise in search engine rankings.

Just because you will have a new website, you still need to provide signposts to it to help people searching for services to find you. These include adding links into social posts, completing your Google My Business page, communicating with customers via email with website links. This all adds to your awareness. So, if your website is new you might want to consider a PPC campaign to give it a boost in search engine results pages (SERPS).

8. Review your website

You usually get a couple rounds of amends included in a web design quote. So, make sure you spend time reviewing it and flagging anything you think needs amending. Once you approve your website then you may find that any other changes cost money. It all depends what agreement you have in place, so check this up front.

9. Ongoing, maintenance and backups

Once everything is approved and your web developer has tested the functionality then you can go live.

When you get a quote for your website ask about ongoing costs for hosting and technical support. Most web developers will include a fee for weekly backups and updates to plugins. However, you may feel you want more support. So ask what is offered, whether that’s onsite SEO, blog writing or a complete digital marketing package.

Website design Croydon

Remember that the website is the centre of your digital world. Anything you share on social media, through email marketing or in a Pay Per Click (PPC) campaign should all link back to your website. Therefore, all digital marketing activity should have a consistent look and feel to help brand awareness and encourage loyalty.

We are a web design company in Croydon. Out digital marketing services include creating bespoke websites for accountants and other businesses, SEO, link building, social media marketing and PPC.

Read more about our web design services and get in touch for a consultation or a free website review.

Word in dictionary illustrating keywords

How to improve onsite SEO with keywords

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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:

  1. Your website is up to date for example, contact details, your team, images etc.
  2. 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
  3. Then consider adding a blog or news feed if you don’t already
Get in touch with us for a free website review.

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

Digital marketing for accountants

Accounting firms: Kick start your inbound marketing campaign

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With so much happening online today, ensuring your accountancy firm has share of voice online is essential for new business and growth. While ensuring your existing clients are well looked after, in this current climate it’s no longer possible to simply rely on repeat business or referrals.

At the centre of all your online activity should be your website, but how do you get potential clients to your site?

Here we give you an overview of how to kick start or enhance your online inbound marketing campaign for your accounting practice.

Set up your Google My Business page

If you haven’t already set this up then make sure you action it as soon as possible. We’ve got a series of videos coming up to give you the ins and outs of this directory but safe to say that as it is one of the largest search engines, then having your business listed with address, contact details, opening times, web URL and services then you are already helping your optimisation strategy to lead people to your business.

Search engine optimisation (SEO)

Before starting your inbound marketing campaign, make sure that your own website is optimised for search engines. There are many tools available to run against your site to see where improvements can be made to your site is more effective. We found Semrush a great tool, although also many free options and plug-ins you can have for your browsers.

If your website design and build was some time ago make sure that is is mobile responsive. Check how the web pages look on your smart phone and that it’s easy to read and navigate.

We can provide a free website review which will highlight some key areas you can focus on initially.

Also take a look at our Boost your SEO blog for some quick fix top tips for your SEO strategy.

Create a persona

Do you know who you are marketing to? One of the best ways to understand this is to create a marketing persona. This is an imaginary character based on your target audience and current client base.

Once you’ve created a persona it makes it much easier to understand how to market to them, what language to use and what online marketing channels would be best.

Here’s our tips on creating an online persona for your firm.

Website structure

You need to make sure your website is structured to make it easier to navigate so that visitors can quickly and simply find what they’re looking for.

This makes a much better experience for your visitors and also lowers the bounce rate which will negatively affect your site in search engine results pages (SERPs).

We can work with you to review your site so that the website functionality is spot on for your prospects.

Keywords

It is worth making sure you know which keywords are appropriate to your business. Be specific. Think about what you would type in the search function to find what you are looking for to help you get a list of the right keywords.

This forms part of your content marketing strategy. Initially we recommend you review all your website content to ensure that it is up to date. Then consider adding a blog or news feed. The reason we suggest this is that it allows a space for you to add regular, fresh content to your website which will incorporate those keywords.  

The more you use the keywords in fresh content, the more chances you have of being found by search engines. If you are an accountancy firm phased in Croydon then makes sure that you regularly say this on your website. But not only that, be a more specific in content and write blogs with keywords in titles or H1headings.

Take a look at our article, why blog, as this has some great tips on keywords, internal and external link building as well as Google My Business.

Inbound marketing agency for accountants

This is just a short overview of the key areas to implement to kick start your inbound marketing. Lay these solid foundations so that you can build on this for your ongoing inbound strategy. Here’s some further reading to help:

We specialise in marketing as well as working closely with many local businesses in Croydon and London area. Take a look at our digital marketing services for accountants including website design and development, social media management, Pay Per Click (PPC) and more.

SEO

Boost your SEO

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Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is a long-term strategy but if you can get into the routine of doing a few simple tasks whenever you upload content to your website then this will support your ongoing SEO strategy well into the future. Here’s our four tips.

Internal links  

As with signage in a shop, your website layout needs to be easy to navigate. This is not just for your website visitors but it’s also for the search engine web crawlers. Always remember that these are part of your core audience. If search engines can simply find their way around your website, then this will help you rise in organic search engine rankings. 

So, how can you help people and search engines move with ease around your site? Well this is where adding internal links is essential. Always have at least three internal links from one web page to elsewhere on your website. Think of it as a signpost and remember to point people in the right direction. Adding a link to the homepage also helps.  

Keywords 

Include your keywords in your web page URL as well as an H1 or H2 header tags – these form part of your technical SEO that you’ll add when you upload your content to content management system (CMS) like WordPress. Again, these act as a guide to search engines about what the content on your web page is about so that your website can appear in search results for an appropriate enquiry.

Keep it simple and people will find you.  

Content marketing keep it fresh  

Unique content is a crucial part of your content marketing strategy. It’s about being informative and knowledgeable providing advice for your target audience.

Remember to add keywords in your website content that are relevant to your products and services. Basically you need to think about what people will search for in search engines and therefore you need to write about it and include these words in your blog post, services pages and homepage.   

Title tag and meta description  

Always complete your title tags. These show on search engine results pages (SERPs). This is what your audience will click on to your website. So, make sure you have your keyword in the title tag but keep within 50-60 characters.  

You can then give more detail for your meta description so that potential website visitors can see more about what’s on offer. Rally think about what will make them click your web page link over your competitors and have that information in you meta description but restrict this to 50-160 characters.  

SEO Croydon   

We’re an SEO company based in Croydon and London with a specialism in helping businesses gain quality leads. We work with a range of businesses including professional services such as accounting firms. We can help with setting up an SEO campaign including SEO audit.

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

Further reading  

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