Tag Archives: Google
Your Digital Strategy for 2018
In 2018 your business needs a digital marketing strategy and this needs to constantly evolve if you hope to stay ahead of your competition, we have a wealth of experience in managing this and developing new strategies for customers as their businesses evolve . As alot of it involves staying on top of current marketing trends and keeping your website and social media profiles properly updated their are also some key issues to be aware of, so here are a few things that you can do that will help your business work better online.
Consistent tone of voice across all social channels
A customer should be able to recognize your business through the look of the business and how you ‘speak’ online, if you want one of the best examples ‘Just Do It’ is one of the simplest, most recognisable slogans of all time – a line Nike has used for the past 15 years – what is your business tone?
Multiple Devices are here to stay
Now more than ever your strategy needs to focus away from only how your business features on a computer screen, to how it features on mobiles, tablets. So your digital marketing strategy should cater to that with ads scaled to fit mobile devices and webpages that can be viewed easily on any device. Mobile ads should even take priority over television and radio ads, especially if you’re targeting a younger demographic.
Time to automate your Content Marketing
There area a multitude of tools that marketers can use to publish content across multiple social media platforms and these tools have evolved to allow you to create and publish content automatically with the push of a button. Social media is even more important than ever in 2018, and the ability to quickly post content to a wider audience will help you stay ahead of your competition.
Please ensure that you share useful content
As important as it is to come up with your own content, you shouldn’t hesitate to share other people’s content if you find it useful and interesting. This is a great way to share links back to your own content and reach a wider audience, especially if you stick to content that is relevant to your own company. You should read out post Social Media and the rule of Two Thirds for more helpful advice on getting this right.
These are just a few things that you can do to stay on top of digital marketing trends during the coming year. As simple as they may seem, they won’t help you if you don’t put in the proper effort. Always work to keep your website and social media profiles updated, and pay close attention to your competition. Digital marketing changes quickly, and you want to make sure you aren’t left behind.
More than ever in 2018 developing a digital strategy for your business shouldn’t be just an afterthought – the businesses that succeed will be the ones that make it integral to their business growth from the start. Now the sales bit, if you need help in creating your digital strategy for your business then please call us on 01392 241653 or contact us through the website here for a no obligation conversation.
Does your business think local?
It should go without saying that its no good having a great product or website if people cant find it, almost pointless in fact.
We’ve written previously about the importance of a Google local listing and it is vital that this is optimised so that your business can be found by local customers. Local information is becoming increasingly important in search engine results pages and Google continues to to show and place importance on mapped and local results wherever possible.
So how does your business fix this?
- First of all if you haven’t already then you need to claim and verify your Google local business listing, ensuring it has the correct details, name, address and opening times are key.
- Then optimise content, keywords and contact details, all useful information for anybody searching, you also need to make sure your contact details across the web are universally consistent.
Finally the ‘icing’ on top is by collecting reviews, and yes this is difficult, you’ll ask far more customers than will give you reviews but do you ask?
Just for the record you can read our Google reviews here and our facebook reviews here both actively collected and always asked for….
Getting your business listing correctly on all search engines shouldn’t be an afterthought – the businesses that succeed will be the ones that make it integral to their strategy from the start. If you need help in ensuring your business is listed correctly then please call us on 01392 241653 or contact us through the website here for a no obligation conversation.
Why your business needs a Google local business listing
As a small business owner, you should know how important your Google search rankings are. You probably have done at least some kind of SEO to increase your ranking and improve the traffic to your business’s website, but that might not be enough. Since Google searches don’t always cover geographic location, simply showing up in a search isn’t enough to generate the kind of local business that you will need. For that, you will need a Google local business listing.
What is a Google Local Listing?
A Google local business listing is a search engine result that shows users businesses that are local to them. For example, if you wanted to see if a store has a location near you, you would enter the name of the store along with the name of your city. If that store had a local listing, it would appear near the top of the search results page. This is usually accomplished by having a Google+ page for your business, which will allow it to show up near the top of the page for a local search, but there are other things you can do to improve your traffic organically and ensure that potential clients near you find your business before anybody else.
Getting the Most out of Google Local Business Listings
The first thing to do when you want a Google local business listing is to create an account with Google My Business. This will get your business out there and make it easier for locals to find. If your business already has a listing that you cannot access, claim and verify it immediately. Next, fill our your business’s profile with all the relevant information such as your location, your hours of operation, payment options and anything else that a potential client would want to know. Make sure that all of this information is totally accurate and that the profile is 100 percent complete.
Once you have a Google local listing, your next step is optimization. Find other sites where you can add your business’s information, and make sure that you have as much duplicate content as you can. By “duplicate content,” we mean things such as your business’s name, its address, hours of operation and everything else that you included in your Google My Business account. You can also encourage your customers to write reviews of your business on sites such as Yelp, Tripadvisor, and anywhere else your business is listed. This doesn’t mean writing fake reviews, however; that is a dishonest tactic and most savvy web users will be able to see right through it. Reviews will come in time, so make sure you reach out to your customers on social media to ensure that they are treated well and satisfied with your service.
Getting your business listing correctly on all search engines shouldn’t be an afterthought – the businesses that succeed will be the ones that make it integral to their strategy from the start. If you need help in ensuring your business is listed correctly then please call us on 01392 241653 or contact us through the website here for a no obligation conversation.
Optimizing for organic search
Optimizing for organic search and refining for SEO is something we’ve alot of experience with and something that as digital marketers we’re always working on to give our customers the best possible service, this is especially important when you consider how competitive and expensive paid search is getting.
In the UK we are pretty much focused on Google as the number one point of call as you dont want to pay Google for every click to your website. So doing the right thing by optimizing for organic search to drive traffic to your website has to be the way forward.
So what are some of the most important strategies that we can work on right away – these are our top three?
The central starting point has to be your website and ensuring that it is mobile-friendly this means that it is responsive. A responsive website scales to fit any device a user is accessing the site from, whether it be a desktop computer, laptop, tablet, or mobile phone. Since Google launched its change to the mobile algorithm in an update in Spring 2015, this will list your site below a competitor in organic rankings if your competitor is better optimized for mobile search compared to your website.
Look at your content, Google’s algorithms and updates ensure that organic rankings are largely driven by the amount of quality content on your website or associated to your business, this can be by news feeds, blogs or even white papers. You need to ensure that the content is quality content and can help the searcher in being relevant and informative.
Dont neglect your local search presence on the Google Business database, you need to make sure that your address is correct and that you have it verified by Google—either via postcard or phone call—so that your business is eligible to be shown in map and local search results. Google, and other search engines, knowing exactly where your business is located can do wonders for your local search.
These are the very basics of SEO that can ensure your website is seen by the widest possible audience for a far more detailed consultation why not call us on 01392 241653 or contact us through the website here, we’d love to help your business perform better online.
We believe in responsive web design, is your site responsive?
As a company we believe in responsive web design and were pleased that as from 21st April following changes to their search algorithm Google have said they will prioritise mobile-friendly websites. So if your website is not fully responsive to screen size, this will lead to a drop in rankings, visits etc – this means it needs to work in smart phones, tablets etc all with differing screen dimensions.
On one hand, you wonder what gives Google the right to specify what type of website you must have? However, the reality is that if you don’t have a responsive website, you’re not offering a smooth user experience and this is what they’re optimising for – they want to prioritise websites that offer the best experience. We have for some time strongly recommended all websites are built for responsive web design and as we’ve already said this means that pages adjust or “respond” according to screen size. This means that for customers on a mobile device, accessing a responsive website is a pleasure – they are more likely to visit more pages, and therefore conversions are likely yo increase. Take our site for example, the image above is taken from a smart phone, but open the site on a tablet or for that matter any internet connected device and the site will resize accordingly giving the user a seamless experience.
Google do have an online tool that you can check your website https://www.google.co.uk/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly/ and see if its compatible, if not they also offer some helpful tips and advice so you can go about making it compatible, so their really is no excuse.
If you need help or advice in getting your site compliant, please get in touch through the website here.
Three top tips for Pay Per Click success
We believe Pay Per Click marketing is something of an art form, easy to setup but very difficult to get it right so it actually works really well for your business. There are many elements that effect the success of any PPC campaign and they generally revolve around the three core rules that should always count. These are, 1. Relevance, 2. Clarity, 3. Distraction – the short ad text is not their to work alone, it should be designed to create interest and make the reader want to know more and click through.
So with all the above in mind you really need to take into account our top three tips to ensure your adverts have Pay Per Click success.
TIP 1: RELEVANCE: You need to make sure that what you say in the ad copy is what is on the page the ‘clicker’ click through to. So don’t say something that isn’t on your landing page and this is very relevant if you mention a specific product or offer…… you need to make very sure that same information is clearly obvious on the relevant landing page.
TIP 2: BE CLEAR: if you make an offer or discount in your PPC advert then that same offer or discount needs to be clearly visible on your landing page, if it isn’t then your bounce rate is only going one way – UP! be clear if offering a deal or else you will get found out..
TIP 3: KEEP THE FOCUS: When you write your PPC ad copy make sure its focussed on what you are offering and ensure this is carried over to the landing page, all PPC adverts work better when they are focused on very specific landing pages. So don’t use a page that is generic, too many PPC adverts head just to a home page and then a business wonders why a ‘clicker’ then doesnt carry out any action. If you think about it a ‘clicker’ has two choices, either A carry out an action i.e. buy the product, or B leave – so be careful about cluttering the landing pages with links to lots of other products or services.
If your business is struggling with its Pay Per Click management or even if you don’t think its working for you after spending a considerable budget (quite common) then why not get in touch for a no obligation appraisal – what have you got to loose?
You can contact GleaveMedia through our contact form here, we’d love to hear from you…
The Future of Digital Marketing 2013
In July we were doing the rounds of networking events with our 15 minute seminar the Future of Digital Marketing an interactive presentation of 15 minutes highlighting how recent changes in search may effect the listeners profile on Google. With all the changes happening in search this year and in particular the recent May Google Penguin update it seemed an opportune moment to update our audience in the South West with what they need to be aware of. As i’m sure you can imagine 15 minutes only gives us the opportunity to scratch the surface, but its a start and if the feedback is anything to go by a well received start.
To view your copy of the presentation you just use the slideshare link below
Google Enhanced Campaigns
Today probably the most significant change in the way Google lets a business reach its target audience will change. After this date any business will be able to directly target ads at any user based on the time of day, location and type of device being used, so for example a restaurant may want to target desktops in the morning but as people are out and abotu after work move to targeting more localized mobile devices later in the afternoon/evening
Google Enhanced Campaigns says – “Enhanced campaigns help businesses reach people at the moments that matter, across all devices, with smarter ads that are relevant to their audience’s intent and context.”
A key part of enhanced campaigns is that they are able to display the correct advert ad and extension, such as sitelinks and click-to-call phone numbers, based on a person’s context and device capabilities. All of this means that you can get the right message to the right person at the right time at the moment that it matters most.
If you need help to get your Google advertising campaign on track so it is working for your business, then please get in touch through the website here for a no obligation chat.
Target your Pay Per Click advertising
One of the key elements of any Pay Per Click campaign is to define who you audience for this actually is. If you can discover who your target audience is this can often not just help your Pay Per Click campaign but also other marketing campaigns across your business.
So how do you do this, well why not ask yourself 5 simple questions
- Who am I targeting with this campaign?
- Where do my ideal customers live?
- Why does my target audience need this product or service?
- How are my competitors ranking for this target area?
- What’s are the demographic of my potential customers?
If you can answer at least some of these questions then you will be well on the way to success, and wont be wasting money on needless click throughs.
Take for example the search on Google on the phrase mini skip hire newton abbot, so you can take it from this, a product that the user is searching for and then a geographic location. So then we have presented very high in the listings – Skip Hire in Hampshire or even the example in Birmingham.
Now it may well be that they deliver nationally, but how likely is a user to click on that and if they do and discover that you don’t deliver nationally then your Pay Per Click budget is being needlessly wasted by not following the really simple steps to getting it right?
So if your business is struggling with its Pay Per Click management or even if you dont think its working for you after spending a considerable budget (quite common) then why not get in touch for a no obligation appraisal – what have you got to loose?
You can contact GleaveMedia through our contact form here, we’d love to hear from you…
