As the world of eCommerce continues to grow and evolve, more and more businesses are turning to digital agencies to help them establish and maintain a strong online presence. However, with so many agencies to choose from, it can be difficult to know which one is the right fit for your business. In this article, we’ll go over some of the key factors to consider when choosing an eCommerce digital marketing agency, so you can feel confident in your decision.
An eCommerce digital agency specialises in helping eCommerce companies achieve their business goals. They typically provide a range of services to their clients, such as website design and development, search engine optimisation (SEO), social media campaigns, content creation, and curation, email marketing campaigns, and advertising campaigns.
The goal of digital marketing companies is to help businesses maximise their profits through effective digital marketing strategies. These agencies also help clients analyse data, so they can make informed decisions about how to best improve their performance over time.
An SEO company in the UK is a valuable partner for any business looking to succeed in the digital world. Here are just some of the advantages of working with them:
Let’s face it—when it comes to eCommerce, results are everything. You need a paid search marketing agency or expert SEO agency that can help you achieve your business goals and drive tangible results. To be results-driven, an agency must deeply understand your business and target audience.
They should be able to provide you with regular reports and analytics to help track your progress and measure your success. This will allow you to make data-driven decisions and adjust your strategy to ensure you always move in the right direction.
Ensure your chosen agency has a proven track record in launching successful digital commerce projects. Look for examples of prior work with industries similar to yours, as well as reviews from companies that have partnered with them. This will give you an idea of the quality of their online marketing services and how they’ve handled past challenges and successes.
Additionally, look into the team’s qualifications and expertise. Are there any members with specialised knowledge or skills relevant to your industry? Knowing who will work on your project helps ensure that the eCommerce agency you hire can deliver results that meet your standards and expectations.
An eCommerce agency with a proactive mindset can save time, money, resources, effort, and stress for both their team and their clients by avoiding potential problems in advance rather than trying to fix them after they’ve already occurred. This also shows that the agency is invested in consistently providing positive outcomes for its clients rather than simply responding when something goes wrong.
A proactive agency will also take the initiative to suggest new strategies, tools, and tactics that can help you achieve your goals.
Open and transparent communication means that the agency is always honest and upfront with you about its strategies, progress, and results. Transparent communication allows for better collaboration between you and the agency. It helps ensure that everyone involved is on the same page.
Look for an agency that takes the time to listen to their clients’ needs and goals to develop a plan that meets those needs. Furthermore, they should keep you informed every step of the way. They’ll provide regular progress reports and updates and will be responsive to your feedback and suggestions. A good agency will view your feedback as an opportunity to improve and grow.
eCommerce agencies must be able to respond quickly and adjust their strategies if needed. An agency that can provide customised solutions that meet your current needs but are agile enough to evolve with changing market conditions will be invaluable.
An eCommerce agency must also be flexible in its payment structures and services. Not all businesses have large budgets, so the agency needs to offer customised options that fit within your budget. Additionally, different projects will require different levels of service from an eCommerce agency, which means they need to be flexible enough to scale up or down depending on their needs.
Identifying your goals is your first step in choosing an eCommerce digital agency. What do you want to achieve with your eCommerce business, and how can an agency help you get there? Knowing what you want the agency to accomplish for your business and setting clear objectives will help you find the right partner and maximise the success of a project.
Think about what you hope to gain from working with an eCommerce digital agency. Do you need them to develop a website? Would they be responsible for creating content or streamlining processes? Answering these questions can help narrow down potential SEO agencies in the UK that specialise in the specific services you require. Additionally, consider any time constraints or budget restrictions.
Consider your short-term and long-term goals as well. Are you looking to increase sales and revenue in the short term, or are you focused on building a strong brand and customer base for the long term?
Make sure to thoroughly document each goal so that it’s easier to understand expectations and ensure successful collaboration. Once completed, refer back to this list during project meetings as well as throughout its duration; this will help keep everyone on track toward reaching shared objectives.
Once you’ve identified your eCommerce business goals and needs, it’s time to start researching agencies. There are countless SEO companies out there, so it’s essential to take the time to find one that’s the right fit for your business.
The best place to start is online. Look for reviews from previous clients and see what other people say about their work. Ask questions such as: What kind of eCommerce campaigns have they executed in the past? Are there any case studies that demonstrate their success?
Another way to research agencies is through referrals. Ask friends or colleagues who may have previously hired an eCommerce digital agency which one they recommend. This can be a great way to find first-hand information on how reliable a particular agency is and if they managed to deliver successful projects.
Once you’ve narrowed down your list of potential agencies, schedule a consultation or meeting to discuss your goals and needs and learn more about their services and capabilities.
Finally, compare different agencies side by side before deciding on which one will be right for you. Make sure you understand exactly what services each provides and consider factors like cost, timeframe, and size of the team.
Ensure the agency has a strong portfolio of successful projects related to eCommerce. Aside from reviewing the team’s core skills and experience in the industry, you should also assess their knowledge of modern trends and technologies used for eCommerce. By determining these, you can ensure you choose a partner with the skills, expertise, and experience to help you achieve your eCommerce business goals.
Consider the services offered in each proposal and how they match the needs of your project. Does one agency provide more or better services than another? Additionally, review the timeline of deliverables each agency has proposed; which do you feel is most realistic and achievable? Consider as well if an agency’s proposal includes details on how they plan to measure success or ROI. Lastly, assess the cost associated with each proposal. While cost should not be the only factor when selecting a digital agency, it can be used as part of an overall evaluation process.
Ultimately, choosing between two different proposals will come down to weighing all these factors against each other and selecting what best meets your goals for the project.
Choosing the right eCommerce digital agency is crucial for the success of your online business. With so many options to choose from, it’s essential to take the time to research, evaluate and compare potential partners to ensure that you find the right fit.
When it comes to eCommerce digital marketing, Smarter Media is a top choice for businesses looking to achieve success online. From SEO and PPC to social media, Smarter Media knows what it takes for eCommerce businesses to thrive. Our team of marketing experts works closely with clients to understand their business needs and develop tailored strategies that drive results and maximise ROI. Contact us today to learn more about how we can help you achieve your eCommerce marketing goals.
At the beginning of February 2023, Google announced they are releasing their own version of ChatGPT ‘imminently’. The global superbrand owned by parent company Alphabet Inc. has felt the pressure by trending OpenAI’s 2022 conversational AI service called ChatGPT. Chat among technical heavyweights has suggested ChatGPT as a replacement for Google Search.
Google and Bing (Microsoft) have simultaneously released their own version in an attempt to keep up with market demand. As well as, we think, to ensure OpenAI does not overtake traditional search engines (or their useability). In this article, we’ll uncover what we believe Bard will do for search engine results pages (SERPs) and how search engine optimisation (SEO) and web content will need to adjust.
What is Bard?Bard is Google’s version of a conversational AI service, similar to OpenAI’s ChatGPT-3. According to Google, Bard is an Artificial Intelligence (AI) service based on their own Language Model for Dialogue Applications (LaMDA) which holds next-generation language and conversational capabilities.
Etymologically, the word Bard is historically found in Celtic cultures. Interestingly a bard could be a verse-maker, music composer, genealogist, historian or professional storyteller; of course, the most famous bard is William Shakespeare, who helped revolutionise both language and storytelling. A bard is generally employed by a patron (a chief for example) to remember and compose content for the patron’s ancestors or praise their own activities. We think it is a very fitting description and a great name for Google’s Bard.
ChatGPT is an artificial intelligence-powered platform that helps users interact with virtual assistants that are capable of understanding natural language. It is designed to be intuitive and user-friendly, offering an interactive and conversational experience. With ChatGPT, users can ask questions, receive answers in real-time, and even get advice on topics ranging from financial planning to health advice. The platform is designed to make it simple and easy to access the information you need without having to sift through a lot of information.
The paragraph above was the answer to a question we posed to ChatGPT. So the answer is in its own words. No wonder there’s been a scramble by other internet heavyweights to provide an alternative and try to make it better than ChatGPT and OpenAI’s capabilities.
The image below shows the international interest online (Google Trends) for the past three months (November 2022, December 2022, and January 2023)
OpenAI admitted that the content on which ChatGPT is trained is only up until 2021. This means that Google’s version Bard can take advantage of the almost unlimited information on Google’s databases in real time.
Google’s search bar is already a household name and is used over 99,000 times every single second (2022 Stats). Knowing this, Google wouldn’t replace the search bar functionality but rather place Bard alongside it.
However, the fast paced release of Bard has already revealed several errors, most notably on its opening question which has since wiped off $102 billion from Google’s share value. Since we know Google will continue to push their ideas to the entirety of Google users, and the Bard release is set to roll out any day now, we hope the functionality and accuracy will improve.
Bard is powered by Google’s own LaMDA (Language Model for Dialogue Applications) which was released (mentioned) over two years ago. They can recall real-time and (potentially) accurate information from Google’s own database (where OpenAI’s ChatGPT is limited).
Bard offers answers starting with ‘some say’ which points to the AI’s ability to answer questions based on several sites' content. This offers you information about a topic without you having to visit several sites at once. It’s a benefit that some copywriters have mentioned about ChatGPT as well.
Google mentioned in an online presentation that the purpose of Bard was to also remove any roadblocks to information. We think they want users on their SERPs for as long as possible, which is a classic move from Google (just see the old zero-clicks searches from yesteryears).
They also mentioned that Bard’s AI capabilities will be incorporated into AR, Maps, Lens, Multi-Search and more. Possibly biggest update to Google’s search functionality is the inclusion of Bard into more than just search from a user perspective. We expect search engine optimisation and SEO based content strategies to alter to meet this new challenge and functionality.
It seems that Bard will show as a first result on the SERP. The first question we have is “what about featured snippets?” Google has not mentioned anything else about existing search functions, including featured snippets itself. It is all speculation at the moment.
The landscape of a SERP may alter, and SEO strategies will need to take this into consideration. We may have to consider what keywords a Bard user may pose and how to optimise and create content so your website may rank in an answer in Bard. However, traditional search is not going anywhere and conventional SEO needs to continue.
There is some chatter about AI bias, and how can we optimise content to best rank considering this potential. Knowing this too, AI services such as Bard takes information from several sources and therefore, how can one website rank there (and potentially be the sole source?).
There has been a lot of gossip in SEO circles about AI participating in content theft (and how can we regulate links to sources). There are also considerations around content regulations and how to ensure accurate and factual information is presented in AI services like ChatGPT and Bard.
Google Translate has been improved and with the assistance of AI through Bard, there is talk about hreflang importance and if there would be any need (or priority) around this. For those who are unfamiliar with hreflangs, they’re a type of signal to search engines about what language is used on a webpage, allowing search engines to display that particular webpage for a certain language searcher, e.g. you may use an Italian hreflang tag to mark out a page as suitable for users of Italian Google. Obviously, there is no update to Google’s own best practices for multilingual sites, and we will stand by their importance as long as Google does.
One last point to make at the moment, is the fact that we have all known for the past few years that visual search is a priority for Google. This is due to the current generation of Google users using images (and Google Lens) to make searches of varying intents; as Google puts it, “if you can see it, you can search it”. The importance of optimising for visual search is only enhanced with the release of Bard and AI learning.
Knowing the massive change in the introduction of this technology can make a business anxious. It is our job to be experts in this new AI technology. We are able to apply our own SEO and Content expertise to the use of AI (both ChatGPT and Google’s Bard). Knowing and being a part of these changes and embracing them completely means we are able to continue helping your business grow.
We understand the generational importance of this update and the new function of Bard and we can advise accordingly to your industry and company’s needs. We also know that there is a potential that Bard may obliterate featured snippets, but before we panic, let's await Google’s announcement on this.
Finally, a term that has been floating around is ‘zero-click-searchs’ and this is when the answer to a Google user’s search term is offered without the need for the person to click through to your website. This is not ideal when you need them on your website to convert into a lead, a sale and contribute to your profits. As is standard in our practices, click-through rate optimisation is addressed as part of the Conversion Rate Optimisation strategy.
So if you find yourself anxious about what emerging artificial intelligence means for your website and especially your company, then reach out and we can guide you through SEO and Content optimisation for AI search services such as Bard and ChatGPT.
Getting audited sounds like bad news for most companies. This is not the case for SEO though. In fact, an SEO audit is a good thing - it helps strategists measure how well your website is doing based on the strategies implemented.
Are the SEO strategies being used working? Where is it going wrong? How can the strategy be improved?
These questions are answered through a detailed audit or analysis of the website. We can fix the problem when we know what's causing the problem in the first place. Only then can we start to adjust and adapt to create a better strategy to hit your goals and objectives.
Here is everything you need to know about SEO audits, SEO technical audits, and what to expect when your website is undergoing an audit.
Contact Smarter Media today to conduct an SEO audit for your website’s digital health.
An SEO audit is a process of analysing how well your website is fairing based on web presence and the strategies you have implemented. Conducting an audit helps identify foundational issues that affect organic search performance.
Here are some of the things SEO audits should reveal:
First, an SEO audit should be as comprehensive as digitally possible.
Besides covering structural and content component related to SEO visibility, an audit should show you the big picture of current events that are relevant to your website. If any of the pieces are missing, an audit shows which ones they are or if something should be removed if deemed unnecessary.
Second, an audit should be understandable, even to someone who doesn't typically delve into the realm of digital marketing. If you're confused about how to understand audits, it may be time to consult an SEO professional to help you in this aspect.
An audit should connect the dots to see how SEO is making an impact on your online priorities, goals, and revenue. This allows you to recommend what to do and what not to do with your website moving forward.
Third, an SEO audit should have recommendations that can be solved by tweaking the current strategy. It should be easy to follow and should be realistic to attain.
An SEO audit shouldn't be rushed. Although the statistics are easy to lay out, understanding the problem affecting your website's health takes time and a lot of strategy meetings.
An audit can take anywhere from 2 to 6 weeks to finish, depending on the website's size. And because any major changes to a website or a website's SEO strategy require a lot of care, an SEO specialist should be the one calling the shots. It's through a specialist that an audit can have impactful recommendations.
An audit that works for one website might not work for the other.
While there is a baseline of technical elements for all websites, each website requires a situational analysis in order to diagnose the issue.
A technical SEO audit is an area of SEO that provides the information you need to improve search engine ranking and website crawlability. It involves improving site load times, checking robot.txt files, and ensuring that redirects are working fine.
Technical SEO audits to ensure that a website can be seen, crawled, and is eligible to rank in a search engine.
They also help you improve the technical characteristics of a website with the goal of improving organic traffic.
You just wrote the best blog article of your life. You know the topic like the back of your hand and have done the research to provide the best answers to possible queries. You implemented all the SEO content techniques and you want everyone to read your article.
With everyone at the edge of their seats, waiting for your blog's release, users can finally click on the link and read your article.
They wait for the page to load, and then wait some more.
It's been 20 seconds and your blog hasn't loaded. Your fans are annoyed and decide to read something else.
For every second your website takes to load, users are clicking away, making your bounce rate increase. It didn’t even matter if your blog post was good or bad - the fact that your website wasn’t functioning quickly enough was the driving force behind users clicking away.
Conducting an SEO audit can identify when and where this is happening in order to avoid this and other problems from ever happening.
Remember, if your site can’t be found and constantly has loading issues, even the most creative content won’t be read by users and in turn, negatively impact SEO.
Here are some of the other elements of technical SEO that is checked when performing an audit:
All websites should be safe, secure, quick to load, easy to crawl, and have clear navigation features. So if one of these isn't so great, your website isn't going to fare well in search engines.
Since no website is the same, no audit looks the same either. But they should have the basic, technical SEO stakes that are the baseline for any website. These include sitemaps, server errors, and metadata. For higher-level audits, accessibility, indexation, and optimisation should be included as well.
There are three main factors that SEO specialists need to look at when conducting an audit:
Because of the complexity of each factor, it takes time to address each point. This is another factor why audits take so long to complete. It's important to be patient and take the time to listen to what your SEO specialist recommends.
Here are other specific audit features you should be able to see:
It seems like a lot because it is. All this information is essential to capturing website health to make accurate recommendations that work.
Since audits can take anywhere from two to six weeks to complete, you might be wondering - what’s taking so long?
Audits take time because an SEO specialist analyses and unearths SEO opportunities on a website. If you’re getting impatient, you can request bi-weekly or weekly check-ins to keep you looped in.
Rest assured, specialists take the time to properly diagnose the problem to craft the best insights for better visibility and search engine rankings.
Once the audit is completed, businesses owners get a presentation by the SEO specialist to share their insights and recommendations with you. For new clients, SEO agencies usually do a lot of hand-holding, just to make sure you understand everything that is to be done on the website. A good SEO agency will take the time to answer queries and explain industry jargon, no matter how tricky the concept may be.
Conducting audits on a regular basis allows your website to be at its very best.
SEO specialists understand how important a website is to a brand - so they take the time to ensure that everything is in order.
Business owners often believe that once a website is up and running, nothing more needs to be done. But the reality is that websites need to stay fresh for Google to clock them as relevant to users. So keeping your website up to date and not stagnant should be the norm.
For example, content should be continuously added or removed every year or month to keep your website accurate.
This is where SEO audits come in - they are a way to identify which content should be replaced or which strategies should be altered. If there are any critical issues, they should also appear in the audit.
Audits are mostly effective when conducted by SEO professionals who have extensive experience in the field. Give us a call at Smarter Media for more information about how you can use an SEO audit to your website's advantage.
Smarter Media is a digital growth agency using our Smarter Approach to help your business grow digitally. Working side by side with our clients, we use our 'Smarter Way' Process to create a plan that delivers results and our 'Smarter Promise' to do what we say we will. For a more comprehensive look at SEO, or to find out how you can achieve a better ROI with SEO & Paid Media working side by side, set an appointment with Smarter Media today!
What is the future of Facebook ads? One thing is for sure, and it'll be much different from today. And yet, you can still learn from the past. We've been working with social media ads since 2020 and have learned much. So considering we're only just going into 2023 now, we thought we'd share some of our insights with you. In this article, we'll share five fantastic insights, free tools and master classes to help you grow your social media campaigns and get the ROI your business deserves.
Short answer: yes. Consumers might not like social ads. However, they are still very effective, and avoiding them is hard.
A key benefit of paid social media ads is their ability to impact results. Even though social media users who see ads in their news feeds may not convert as quickly, 58% of respondents said it affects their buying decisions. Further, 49% of internet users report purchasing from brands advertised on social media.
It’s also interesting to note that 57% of consumers use social media while watching television. So while television advertisements (31%) and word-of-mouth ads (28%) remain more popular for brand discovery than advertising on social media (27%), consumers are increasingly researching brands on social networks.
Given how effective social media advertising is and how it’s managed to influence our everyday lives, it’s still worthwhile to invest time, money and effort into social media ads.
Companies can use social media platforms to interact with clients and build relationships with them. The more familiar customers become with your brand, the more likely they recommend you to their friends, thereby expanding your brand's reach.
Comparatively speaking, social ads are relatively inexpensive. Budgets can also be set at any level. This way, you can devote some of your funds to social media without hurting your budget.
Ads on social media can also demonstrate social proofing, thereby improving brand loyalty and converting one-time visitors into long-term customers.
More advertisers are experimenting with social video ads than ever before. Increasingly, advertisers see that social video advertising can help them meet branding and performance objectives. As TikTok, Instagram Stories and Reels continue to rise, and marketers are also using snappy video content to reach their audiences.
Video advertising is Twitter's fastest-growing advertising tool, with more than 2 billion video views daily on the platform. It also states that tweets with videos receive ten times more engagement than tweets without.
Influencers with trustworthy social media ads and content are increasingly sought after by social media users. There is potential for micro-influencers to bridge the gap between the new demand for authentic, trustworthy sources and established influencer marketing practices. In 2021, micro-influencers had a higher engagement rate than mega-influencers.
The trend of personalisation has been around for several years now. Even so, its adoption for social media is still relatively new. Personalising social media ads is the most effective way for businesses and marketers to utilise the trend. Marketers can target and customise their campaigns through social media platforms. Since social media platforms now can understand the types of products people like, this enables you to show suitable ads at the right time to the right people.
Social media advertising is the second most popular digital advertising, following search advertising. Brands worldwide spent £3,118 on social media ads in Q2 2022, but UK brands spent 59% more. UK brands had the highest social media advertising spending, averaging £4,945. Most global digital ad spending goes to Google, and Facebook is close behind.
Social media platforms with the most popularity for advertising include Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and LinkedIn. Various ad formats on the platform include an image, video, carousel, collection and boosted posts. Advertisers on Facebook reach 2.11 billion people, which is why businesses can benefit from partnering with a reliable Facebook advertising agency.
Knowing the landscape before getting started is always helpful. Look at what your competitors do on social networks like Facebook and Instagram.
Social media ads are often viewed on mobile devices, so you need to make your ads easy to view on mobile phones.
There's no need to be present on every social network. Choosing the right platforms is more important, so you invest your time and resources wisely.
In a busy feed, anything that moves, such as videos and gifs, will catch your audience's attention. Additionally, motion allows you to share more images and information with less space.
Test several ads with small audiences, and determine which works best. The winning ad should then be used in the primary campaign.
It may seem daunting to create social media ads, but we're here to help. If you’re looking for a ‘marketing agency near me,’ and you’re in Swindon, our team at Smarter Media can assist you in running a successful social media advertising campaign. Get in touch with our strategists today.
Social media posts are not links. They assist in your link-building campaigns by increasing brand awareness and the popularity of your website or blog. Do they count as backlinks?
A backlink is when another website links to yours. It’s crucial to have quality backlinks and leverage SEO link-building services to boost your site's ranking in search engines.
Google and other major search engines regard a backlink to a particular webpage as a vote of confidence for that page. As a result, backlink-rich pages usually rank higher organically.
When another website links to yours, it gives search engines an indication of how popular and relevant your site is. This improves your ranking in search engine results pages (SERPs), increasing your website's visibility and traffic.
The best way to rank higher in the SERPs is to build quality backlinks. The following are a few factors that contribute to a backlink's quality.
A more established website can pass on more authority by linking to your site. If a link originated from a reputable website, Google evaluates it favourably.
Relevant backlinks are more valuable to Google because they attract more clicks.
There are a large number of dofollow links on the internet. Google and other search engines ignore nofollow tags. Thus, nofollow links do not affect search engine rankings. Meanwhile, most of the nofollow links offer little value and typically come from sources like comments on blog posts, news releases and sponsored posts. Conducting a backlink audit can help you monitor backlinks to discern quality links from harmful ones.
Are social media posts counted as direct backlinks? No. A Twitter or Facebook post or page that links back to your website is technically not considered a backlink. Some may argue that, by definition, it can be considered a backlink. As mentioned, a backlink is any link on another website that links back to yours. So since Facebook is, at its core, a website, then a Facebook post that links back to your business website is considered a backlink by some.
But even if Facebook links can be considered backlinks by definition, how popular search engines, like Bing and Google, rank websites is another story.
A backlink serves as an SEO tool and impacts your search engine rankings. In this scenario, social media links aren't considered backlinks since they’re usually no-follow links. As stated, no-follow links don't add authority to your website or affect your search engine rankings.
Social media links have an indirect yet powerful impact on your website. However, engaging audiences on social media offers backlinking opportunities. In this case, social media can be an excellent tool for building links.
So while you should rely on something other than social media links to improve your website's search engine rankings, you should only discard them partially. In addition, since Facebook is a social network, you can establish long-term business relationships there, enhancing your SEO potential.
Social media doesn't affect your rankings, so it won't directly benefit you. But while the two don't directly correlate, social media also plays a role in SEO. This is where partnering with a social media agency in the UK that also provides professional SEO services comes in handy.
As your content becomes more visible on social media, it’s likely that more people will share your content across their networks. More traffic will be sent to your site, resulting in higher rankings.
Getting your web pages indexed by Google faster can be achieved using your social media accounts. For instance, as soon as new content is published on your site, share it immediately on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter to increase traffic. This signals to Google that your page needs to be crawled and reindexed.
Don't know how to utilise search engine optimisation (SEO) in your marketing strategy for your small website? Many people are looking for professional SEO services to solve their problems. If you want to use SEO in your marketing strategy, you've come to the right place. Read on to discover how SEO can enhance your marketing efforts and how investing in small business SEO services can benefit you.
SEO refers to improving a website's position in the search engine results page (SERP) for certain queries. Small websites can benefit from SEO in the following ways.
Keeping up with search engines' rules ensures that your site is in top condition. This will benefit you in more ways than just improving your rankings. It also makes it easier for customers to trust you since your website provides them with a good user experience.
SEO can help small websites compete with more significant sites. It helps create a level playing field and allows small businesses to gain exposure.
SEO also drives traffic to a website, increasing sales and conversions. When done correctly, it can be a lucrative long-term marketing strategy.
Investing time and money into building a beautiful website is ineffective if no one can find it. Here are some tips for incorporating SEO into your small website marketing strategy to generate more traffic.
With SEO, you can increase traffic to your site. It is wonderful to have traffic, but it won't be helpful to your business if it comes from people who don't need or want what you offer. It’s better to attract targeted traffic, which consists of people who will most likely be interested in purchasing from you.
To determine your target audience, ask questions such as: What are my customers' pain points? What problem do I want to solve? How would I describe the demographics of my ideal audience? In what ways can I help my customers with the content I publish?
A successful SEO strategy begins with choosing relevant keywords for a blog, article or other pieces of content. The primary keyword you want to rank for is the primary focus of your content. It needs to reflect your brand, marketing strategy, product or service.
Additionally, it would be best if you had secondary keywords, which can be long-tail variants, subtopics or synonyms of your main topic. Reliable search engine optimisation consultants can help you discover the most relevant primary and secondary keywords to put on your website.
Backlink building must also be a priority. A backlink is a vote of confidence and helps your site rank higher in search results. Backlinks, however, are not all created equal. They must come from a niche or industry-relevant, high-quality site. Backlinks can be built through writing guest posts and using social networks.
Web pages have title tags and meta descriptions displayed in search results. Meta descriptions and title tags should contain your targeted keyword and capture users' attention.
Meta descriptions build off of title tags. In your meta description, describe your content briefly and include a few keywords you are targeting.
Don't just create content around keywords; create content that brings real value to readers. The idea is to provide prospects with the information they are seeking. Relevant content boosts your search engine rankings and attracts paying customers.
Any content created, whether a blog post or a social media post, must have a specific purpose and prioritise client needs. Users visit your site for a reason, and providing the right content can increase search visibility and conversions.
Managing a small business can be hectic, with most employees handling multiple tasks and balancing daily duties. As a result, it can be challenging to incorporate SEO into your marketing strategies. Nevertheless, it's crucial for long-term success.
Plan your content and posts to maintain consistency. Make sure you remain consistent and provide regular content, even if it means only one or two posts per week. Being consistent over time will make your audience look forward to your new content.
Regularly auditing your website ensures that it's easy to use and works well. It helps you identify and fix SEO issues like slow page loads, unresponsive pages and 404 errors.
You can learn a lot about the performance and optimisation of your website by conducting an SEO audit. Smaller audits can analyse competitors, conversions, linking or user experience.
Make your website easy to navigate, and ensure visitors can immediately see who you are and what you offer.
Add several headings to improve readability, and put keywords in them. The speed of a website is also important for SEO. You don't want your visitors to be frustrated with a slow website. Last but not least, you'll want to make sure your site is mobile-friendly.
Choosing a professional SEO company has many benefits.
SEO professionals have the expertise and knowledge to boost a website's search engine ranking. Additionally, they will know about the latest algorithm updates and SEO best practices.
Search engine optimisation can take time. When you aren't able to do the work yourself, an SEO company is a wise choice. A company that provides SEO services helps you save time as well.
Finally, hiring an SEO company gives you confidence because you are assured that your website is in good hands. So while they handle your website's SEO, you can concentrate on running your business.
Small businesses and start-ups can benefit greatly from SEO. These businesses can generate significant leads and customers from organic traffic.
Don't wait any longer to use SEO to boost your marketing efforts. Smarter Media offers SEO services to help you increase your website's visibility, so you can attract more visitors and generate more leads. Contact our team today to learn more about our custom packages and SEO cost.
Being visible on search engines is one of the most important requirements for competing online. There is a secret to success: you do not have to be an expert in everything. If you follow these simple steps, you will soon be able to understand the search engine optimisation process.
SEO stands for search engine optimisation, which is organically increasing a search engine's visibility to a website without having to pay for advertising. With the help of SEO and partnering with an SEO expert in the UK, you will be able to improve your website's search engine rankings in a way that makes it easier for search engines to find and rank your website.
Search engine optimisation has become an integral part of any business's marketing strategy in the digital age. SEO benefits businesses by allowing them to reach a broader audience online, increase leads and sales and brand themselves more effectively.
Every business should include SEO in its marketing strategy since it is a powerful tool for attracting more customers online. If you don't take advantage of SEO best practices or partner with a reliable SEO agency in the UK, you are losing out on a great chance of growing your business.
Keyword research consists of finding and analysing keywords people enter into search engines.
Best practices
Identify broad topics related to your topic: Create a spreadsheet containing general categories or buckets for your keywords. These could be related to product categories or anything you believe would interest your target audience. List topics in a concise manner, no more than 5 to 10.
Add phrases your customers use to each topic: Once you've identified a few topic buckets, choose keywords that belong there. These keyword phrases are the ones you think will rank well in the SERPs since your target customer is likely to search for them.
Search for related terms: Adding keywords to your list can be done in many ways. For instance, you can enter a keyword phrase into Google and scroll down, revealing a list of related search terms.
Use keyword research tools: Keyword research or SEO tools are the easiest ways to determine the strength of your keywords. When doing your analysis, be sure your keywords match people's exact search terms. You should also consider the search volume, meaning you shouldn't structure a strategy around a keyword phrase if few people use it. And lastly, you want a keyword that gets more search traffic and has lower organic competition.
A professional SEO company can help you discern the best keywords to maximise visibility.
Technical SEO ensures a website's technical requirements are met to improve organic rankings.
Best practices
Secure your website with SSL: Secure Sockets Layer, or SSL, provides an encrypted connection between a browser and a web server. Websites with SSL certificates appear higher in search results than those without.
Optimise your site for mobile: Search engines consider responsiveness in a site to be a very important ranking signal. Therefore, your website should be fully responsive and optimised for mobile, tablet and desktop devices.
Boost your site's speed: Sites that load quickly are preferred by search engines. You can speed up your site in several ways, such as choosing a fast hosting service or compressing your images.
Check for duplicate content: Duplicate content can be avoided by ensuring that your CMS does not publish multiple versions of a page for the same content or by utilising canonical links to indicate to search engines where your main content is located.
Make an XML sitemap: An XML sitemap aids search engines in crawling your website. It provides important details about your site's pages, including their last modification date and priority.
Enhance your website with structured data markup: You can add structured data markup to your website to make it easier for search engines to understand its content. Search engines can use this data to index your site more efficiently and deliver relevant results.
On-page SEO involves modifying a page's content, internal links and tags to rank better in searches and attract more visitors.
Some best practices include:
Put a strong emphasis on readability. Make your content scannable so that users can find information quickly.
The first 100 words of your article should contain your target keyword.
Keywords shouldn't be overused.
Link externally. Search engines use external links to determine the topic of your page. Your page will also appear to Google as a hub of quality information if it contains well-placed external links.
Optimise your images by adding SEO-friendly alt tags and selecting the correct format and file size.
Best practices
Make linkable assets: Linkable assets aim to attract links. Infographics are an example of linkable assets. Infographics tend to be read more than full articles, so creating links with accompanying infographics will appeal to readers who do not want to read the full article.
Engage in social media: Posting your content on social media is easy to build backlinks. Regularly share brand news and updates, reply to comments from your audience, acknowledge brand mentions, and participate in niche-specific social media discussions.
Reclaim backlinks: While you should always look for new opportunities to build links, it is also helpful to identify and reclaim lost backlinks you earned in the past.
So what is a competitive analysis report, and why should you create one for your business? A competitive analysis report is a detailed information sheet about your website's competition. It usually contains the website's most important characteristics (such as domain rankings, social media profiles, links, potential risks and more) so that you can make informed decisions on optimising your website.
Creating a competitive analysis report requires researching your SEO competitor's website content and related elements, such as keywords and links. The report can include analysing keywords, competitors' backlinks, keyword gaps and the top content.
A competitive analysis report allows you to observe what your competitors are doing and incorporate it into your SEO strategy. Rather than guessing what keywords to use, content to write and links to create, you can use the report to learn what has worked for others and build from there.
Without keeping up with the latest trends, companies can go out of business instantly. But regardless of whether your industry is prone to seismic change, you should know what drives your clients' decisions. This is where a competitive analysis report comes in handy, giving you an overview of your competitors and your market.
When you regularly analyse your marketplace through competitive analysis, you'll notice improvements to competitors' existing products or services and potential threats from new competitors. As such, this helps you adjust your strategy accordingly.
For SEO competitive analysis, follow these steps:
Identifying your SEO competitors is the first step. When undergoing this step, it's important to remember that your largest market competitors may not necessarily be your biggest SEO competitors. Smaller companies can have excellent SEO and perform better than their competition in the digital world.
Identifying your competitors shouldn't be a guessing game. When you rely on your instincts to figure out who your competition is, you may miss some important details. Often, large companies concentrate on high-volume keywords and neglect long-tail keywords, which allow smaller companies to gain a competitive advantage. So conduct a wide-ranging SEO comparison and analysis of various keywords. Next, check out the top 10 or 20 sites that consistently rank for them.
Identifying non-competitor sites depends on factors such as current ranking, resources and effort invested. Remember, the more established or bigger the site, the more effort you will need to devote to outranking it, affecting your overall strategy.
So focus instead on competitors who will impact your traffic the most. Your lost traffic will likely come from these sites.
Often referred to as keyword gap analysis, competitive keyword analysis helps you uncover keywords that your competitors rank high for but not you. To optimise individual pages, you should conduct a keyword gap analysis.
Look for keywords relevant to your business, highly searched for or likely to result in sales. Ideally, the keywords you choose should also be ones that you can rank well.
Manually analysing keywords is difficult because there may be thousands of keywords that you or your competitors rank for. The good news is that there are simple solutions and keyword analysis tools you can use to make things easier.
Once you discover relevant keywords for your business, you can create a page dedicated to ranking them. By doing this, you have a chance to attract customers to your site instead of the competition.
Content ideas can be developed using keywords. Aside from keywords, it is also a good idea to check out your competitors' most successful content. This content may be the ones that have earned the most links for your competitors. Links are essential for ranking, so focusing on topics others link to is a good idea. Once you identify your competitors' best content, you can significantly improve it in one or more ways. Afterwards, you can share your content with a similar audience.
Rather than simply copying your competitors' content, make it significantly better. It could be enhanced with more information or eye-catching graphics–anything that would improve its appeal and utility.
You can also determine your competitor's top pages by looking at the pages' traffic. You can identify good topics based on this information with accurate traffic estimates for each page.
Backlink analysis involves analysing the inbound links that point to a website. By studying these links, you can learn a lot about your competitors' SEO tactics, such as the type of content they're producing, their link-building strategy and how powerful their backlink profile is.
As you analyse your competitors' backlinks, you should consider the number of backlinks, the domain authority of websites that link to theirs and the relevance of the links in general.
Understanding the right keywords isn't enough. To succeed with your keyword, you must understand search intent.
The idea is to understand what the searcher is looking for by getting inside their head. You can do this by looking up a keyword you want to target. You can also use tools that would provide a SERP analysis report on a keyword's monthly volume, difficulty, priority and more.
Using the relevant data, prepare a competitor analysis report. With this report as a basis, you can develop your SEO content strategy. Please make a list of keywords and content ideas and save it. The next step is implementing the content strategy and contacting external sites if necessary.
After you publish new content or re-optimise old ones, you should track their performance. Ensure your competitor analysis strategy works by auditing your keywords regularly and creating competitor analysis reports.
Are you looking for an SEO company in the UK that can provide professional SEO services? At Smarter Media, our team of search engine optimisation consultants can help you achieve greater visibility for your website. Contact us today to learn more about our SEO packages.
The link between a successful website and SEO has been proven to be true time and time again. This is why small businesses that embark on their SEO journeys early on have seen immense success and return on investment.
But it's not too late to join the SEO craze.
Are you a small business owner that wants to move into digital marketing?
You're on the right track!
One of the most effective ways to enter the digital marketing space for a business is to implement SEO strategies for your website. While SEO is an excellent strategy, most business owners know the basics of SEO but are confused about certain details of it.
Don't worry. Although SEO can get confusing, the experts are here to help.
In this article, we'll be getting into how much SEO costs, how much you should spend on SEO, if you should hire an SEO agency, and if it's worth it at the end of the day.
Are you looking for an SEO agency to help you weave through complex SEO practices? Schedule an appointment with Smarter Media for more information about how you can make use of SEO strategies today.
Here's the reality: there are over 3.5 billion search queries per day through Google.
But small businesses aren't usually keen on allocating a budget for SEO. In fact, there are some times where SEO marketing strategies are entirely ignored. According to a study done, 54% of small enterprise owners didn't have a budget for SEO at all.
This doesn't mean small enterprises aren't informed of the use of SEO - they simply don't know what is needed and how much to allocate towards digital marketing.
Quit the worry and learn about how you, as a business owner, can benefit from SEO while knowing how much it costs.
We first need to look at what we mean by the cost of SEO.
When we’re looking at SEO budgeting, this does not refer to pay-per-click advertising methods. Instead, SEO costs are related to improving organic traffic to a specific website through search engine optimisation and rankings.
There are already hundreds of SEO agencies scattered around the UK, and they offer various SEO services to small businesses like mom and pop shops to large conglomerates that are valued at billions.
Usually, there are three pricing structures that you might find when looking through SEO agencies and services:
Depending on the type of SEO you choose, here are estimates of what SEO could cost you per month:
Free.
For business owners that are working on an extra tight budget and/or already have the necessary SEO skills and industry knowledge, doing SEO on your website is cost-efficient. This isn’t recommended though for those that are not well-versed in the digital marketing world or have the consistent time required to dedicate to the constant updates and adjustments needed.
£50 - £2,000.
Best for small businesses, budget-friendly SEO allows you to define your content. Services included are suggestions for content marketing and basic onsite SEO recommendations.
Those in gardening, local construction, hairdressers, and the like are encouraged to invest their budget here.
£2,000 - £6,000
Established businesses benefit from this the most - they are looking to define their content marketing and include content and website audits.
In this budget range, not only are you fixing website issues, but you are also altering and optimising the current website to generate even more traffic and revenue.
£6,000.
For websites with high traffic volumes, high-end SEO is the best option. With this budget, technical SEO issues can be fixed without worry.
SEO's benefits might seem too good to be true. They must cost a crazy amount of money!
But contrary to popular belief, SEO is one of the most flexible types of marketing in the business. In fact, many say that it's one of the more cost-efficient ways to advertise and convert leads online, as it can be bent to how much you want to spend in a month. Although it may be overwhelming at first, SEO pays for itself in the long run. And isn't that the beauty of investments?
We aren't saying SEO is cheap - all forms of advertising can cost you a pound or two. Instead, we're telling you that there are ways to temper price points based on your budget for the year or even the month.
Here are reasons why SEO can be expensive:
For these reasons, SEO can become expensive, especially if you decide to ball out on the services. But the more you spend, the better your website traffic will be, turning lurks into leads and leads into loyal customers that will stay with you forever.
So even though you need to shell out for the first few months of the process, costs will go down after your website gains the following it needs.
An agency should also make use of some of these tools to help optimise your website:
Although the budget is the determining factor of how much you can spend on SEO, also keep in mind that SEO is an excellent investment to make.
To help guide you, here are some crucial things to consider when hiring an SEO agency:
Here are the objectives a website requires to be successful or generate more traffic:
Information architecture
Content
Backlinks
If your SEO agency hasn’t mentioned any of these listed above, inquire about these services and consider including them in your SEO package. But if your SEO agency doesn’t offer these essential services, you should consider moving agencies once you outgrow the basics of SEO.
At the end of the day, all of these don’t matter if you’re working with the wrong SEO agency. Selecting the agency that you know can work best with you and you trust enough to help your business grow.
Once you find the right agency, your investment will be well worth it, especially since the benefits of SEO last for years and years.
The verdict?
Invest in SEO.
Small businesses can work with a smaller budget, but your SEO should follow suit as your business grows. Those starting can get away with just the basics, but as more traffic comes in, more website issues need fixing. More issues mean a larger budget.
One thing's for sure with SEO, as long as you're with the right company that understands your vision, SEO can be an amazing tool for growing any business in any industry.
So it’s safe to invest your money in SEO as it has proven to be successful for many.
Are you looking for an SEO agency to guide you in the right direction? Visit us at Smarter Media for more information about starting your SEO journey today!
Smarter Media is a digital growth agency using our Smarter Approach to help your business grow digitally. Working side by side with our clients, we use our 'Smarter Way' Process to create a plan that delivers results and our 'Smarter Promise' to do what we say we will. For a more comprehensive look at SEO, or to find out how you can achieve a better ROI with SEO & Paid Media working side by side, set an appointment with Smarter Media today!
Is there a social media lead generation agency near you? If you're in digital marketing, the answer is most likely yes. Many have learned that digital marketing isn't just about displaying ads. Of course, social media advertising is quite popular nowadays, and some companies don't know when to stop spending on paid ads. Sometimes, all they have to do is to start focusing on organic marketing instead.
Social media lead generation involves collecting new leads through social media. It is all about capturing and converting qualified leads through effective marketing strategies.
B2C and B2B marketers can benefit from social media lead generation, as it helps you identify your target audiences. As a result, you will be able to reach out to them with helpful content and offers and eventually convert them to paying customers. This establishes you as a valuable resource for potential customers.
Using social media, you can enhance your lead generation efforts to increase brand awareness, web traffic and community engagement.
If you want to collect leads organically, set everything up before you start your following social media lead campaign. For instance, if you want customers to get in touch, subscribe to your newsletter or purchase from you, make it easy for them to do so on your profile.
Your profile should include your contact information. However, before adding them, ensure you can handle customer inquiries via phone, email, Messenger and other methods.
Your bio should also include a link. This space is often used on Instagram, but it can also be found on LinkedIn, Twitter and Pinterest. Include a call-to-action that explains why people should click and what they can expect.
It is often possible to obtain information freely from people with the right incentives. Creating enticing lead magnet offers, such as a free tool or research report, will help you accomplish this. Additionally, you could offer whitepapers, webinars and discount codes.
In today's marketing world, instant messaging and chatbots have become powerful marketing tools. Using chatbots, businesses can better connect with their prospects and simultaneously lower overhead costs. AI-powered chatbots enable you to engage your social media followers and increase leads. Chatbots can also build profiles based on previous interactions, allowing them to provide tailored content and product recommendations.
Influencers on social media are a great source of qualified and engaged leads. Influencer marketing reaches people through the content they already consume. A few seconds of coverage from a content creator your target audience loves can boost social media B2B lead generation. Promote your brand by having your chosen influencers sponsor posts, giveaways and content.
Showcase how clients benefit from your products and how your brand has helped resolve common customer concerns by encouraging customers to leave feedback on your page. Social proof is a valuable lead generation tool, and social media is an excellent platform for showing client feedback. By allowing prospects to read or watch reviews and recommendations, you will increase your brand's credibility and make them feel confident to do business with you.
Social media contests are a great way to spread the word about your product or service. Generally, businesses run contests for two reasons. The first benefit is receiving many leads that can benefit their business. The second benefit is that participants can share each contest with more people. As a result, the post reaches an even broader audience.
Social media can be a great way to promote something time-sensitive and create buzz ahead of time.
You can create a Facebook event with the date, time, location and price a few weeks in advance. Utilise your company's Facebook page to encourage RSVPs. Set up a hashtag and promote it on all your social networks. Encourage Twitter followers to use it when discussing your event or promotion. Meanwhile, on Instagram, you can use the hashtag to share images from the event and invite your followers to join in.
By staying consistent across all your channels, you can use social media to make people aware of your event and motivate them to attend.
Pin important information, such as your contact info and other key links, at the top of your Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter profiles so that visitors can see it immediately.
When you go live on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter, you can invite your followers to join you. During the live video, you can point them to a sign-up page.
To work this out, ensure your live video provides value to your audience. You can interact with an industry expert, do a Q&A on a relevant subject, share some insider tips or demonstrate how your product works. Your ideal customer should find the content you talk about in the video interesting.
Live videos do not have to be elaborate productions. In most cases, you need a smartphone and a tripod, and you're ready to go.
Your sales leads can be doubled with referral campaigns. Leads are rewarded for referring their friends and colleagues through these campaigns. You could offer a discount, complimentary gift or gift card for a referral. Meanwhile, referred people will have the opportunity to learn about your offerings and become potential customers.
Social media marketing is a key tool for generating leads. Following the tips above can turn any platform into a lead generation channel.
Looking for a social media agency to help improve your paid and organic lead generation efforts? Smarter Media has years of experience developing and managing social media campaigns. Get in touch with our team today.
