Know Your Audience: Why Analytics Should Feed Your Marketing Strategy

In this post, we’ll cover the following:

There’s an old saying that goes, “If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?”.

It’s an age-old question, but it’s still a relevant one. If you’ve got a great website, but you have no insight into its users, then is it really as good as you think? Is it working? Are people using it at all?

When it comes to successful digital marketing, measurement and analytics are crucial to your brand’s growth. This is because a solid, yet ever-learning and evergreen strategy thrives on data, whether that’s generated from testing of past campaigns or analytics tools that give you an insight into how users interact with your marketing.

WHAT ANALYTICS TOOLS SHOULD I BE USING?

There are tons of tools out there that can gather data about how people use your website. The most popular – and well known – of these is Google Analytics.

Every website should be using Google Analytics, as it allows you to view not just how many users have visited your website, but where they came from, how long they spent on your site and which pages they visited.

It also allows you to set up goals which allow you to track a conversion, for example filling in an enquiry form or making a purchase. This helps you measure how well your website is performing, and then make adjustments to guide more users to completing that all-important goal.

There are gaps in this analysis, though. While Google Analytics gives you data on the pages your users visit, it doesn’t tell you much about how the user interacted with the page itself. For example, users could be dropping off a landing page, but the data from Google Analytics won’t tell you why.

That’s where Hotjar comes in. Hotjar is heatmapping software that helps you better understand a users’ behaviour on your website, giving you more data on how users spend their time on it.

By generating heatmaps of popular areas on a page as well as session recordings, you can get clearer data on any roadblocks in your customer’s journey, and adjust your website accordingly.

WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN HOTJAR AND GOOGLE ANALYTICS?

Hotjar is no substitute for Google Analytics, but its an important tool that the team at EDGE Creative use to get a better insight into how users are interacting with the websites we build for our clients. It’s extremely useful to use both tools in conjunction with one another, as when combined, they can give a more complete picture overall.

Hotjar allows you to physically see where a user pays attention on a page with heatmaps that track how long a user spends on a certain section – for example if a piece of copy gets scrolled past often, you’ll know that this is an area that needs to change.

From this, you can see where website visitors encounter problems in their journey, where they get stuck before dropping off, and how they interact with individual page elements and sections. You can also garner feedback about website experience through surveys.

WHY DO I NEED ANALYTICS?

By using tools like Hotjar and combining your findings with that of Google Analytics, you can revolutionise how you plan your marketing strategy.

This is because with reliable and accurate insights into how users interact with certain elements of your website, you can predict what is more likely to generate success in the future. The more analysis you do, the more tweaks you can make – which will in turn generate more data to tell you how effective those tweaks have been.

More data means more informed marketing, and with more informed marketing, you can rise above the competition.

WANT TO GET AHEAD OF THE GAME?

At EDGE Creative, we know that creativity is nothing without strategy when it comes to marketing, and strategy is nothing without analytics to back it up.

This is why when we build websites or launch campaigns, we use analytics tools like Hotjar to give us a clear insight into how users are interacting with our clients’ marketing.

If you’d like to find out more about how you can get more understanding of your audience and transform your findings into success, talk to us to claim a complimentary website audit, where we’ll use tools to highlight how visitors are currently using your website and how it can be improved to drive more conversions.

Call 0121 355 8092 or email us at info@edge-creative.com to get in touch.

Why Being a Google Partner Benefits Our Clients

In this post, we’ll cover the following:

When it comes to marketing, recognition from the leaders of the digital world is one of the best indicators of knowledge and expertise within the industry. We’re proud to be Google Partners at EDGE Creative, and since achieving this recognition, we’ve continued to provide clients with successful advertising campaigns.

As our digital team has grown, so have our clients’ advertising campaigns as a result of the hard work and dedication we’ve demonstrated over the years – spanning from ecommerce for equestrian brands to huge national recruitment campaigns for big names within the logistics industry.

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR EDGE CREATIVE?

As a Google Partner, we’ve been recognised as an agency to have the skills to launch successful advertising campaigns within search engines. It also means that our employees have demonstrated Google Ads expertise through assessments and certifications.

Being a Google Partner reflects that we’ve successfully delivered revenue growth for our clients through advertising, and have grown our client base significantly. This demonstrates that we’ve earned the recognition, and its something we couldn’t be prouder of!

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR OUR CLIENTS?

When looking for an agency to assist with your advertising campaigns, you’ll want to know that the team you’ve chosen has a high level of expertise. Being a Google Partner means that our clients can be sure that they’re working with an agency that has demonstrated knowledge and skill with a track record of success.

Our experience in Google Ads and search engine marketing allows us to offer a more in-depth level of service, with detailed reporting and monitoring throughout our clients’ campaigns. We combine paid advertising with other marketing activities such as SEO, email marketing and social media to deliver a full, omni-channel approach that reaches audiences across a huge range of platforms.

HOW CAN WE HELP?

If you’re looking to expand your business’s online presence and reach a wider audience, search engine advertising is a hugely important tool that can put your brand in front of the right people.

At EDGE Creative, our digital team are strategy driven, and in collaboration with our design, development and content departments, we can offer a full, integrated marketing service that represents your brand’s values.

To talk to us about your requirements, call 0121 355 8092 or email info@edge-creative.com to claim your free consultation with a Marketing Director.

How Important is an Integrated Approach When It Comes to SEO & PPC?

For SEO and PPC it’s important to know these factors before making any decisions:

As an integrated marketing agency, we are often asked “Which is best: Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) or Pay Per Click advertising (PPC)?” Despite this being a simple question, it doesn’t really have a simple answer.

The answer to this question depends mainly on your business, industry, competitors and overall objectives. You may believe that for you, one works better than the other, but you are more likely to find that an integrated approach – i.e. using a mixture of the two – is what’s best for your business.

It all comes down to your wider digital marketing strategy. Looking at factors such as your customer personas or customer journeys will help you to determine the best place to start.

WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN SEO AND PPC?

There are two main differences to consider when looking at search engine optimisation and pay per click advertising:

  • Page positioning – PPC adverts appear at the top of the page, above the organic listings (which you’ll be concentrating on for SEO).
  • Price – An organic (non-paid) approach doesn’t cost when individuals land on your website, however PPC has a cost for each click. 

WHY IS SEO SO IMPORTANT?

Search engine optimisation is the best way to get your website in front of the right people and increase organic traffic. There are many benefits to this approach, which include:

  • Increase visibility, brand awareness and credibility

When a search engine user searches a particular phrase to do with your industry and your website appears organically, you’re directly showcasing your expertise and knowledge in that sector. Do this on a regular basis, and your business will become an authoritative voice around that given subject.

  • Provide your target audience with the knowledge they need

More often than not, a user will turn to a search engine when they want to find out information. By becoming an authoritative voice that answers the questions your target audience have, you can grow your positive reputation. This can deliver further benefits as your brand becomes more memorable, which can mean your customers will skip the search engines and land straight on your website when they’re ready to make a purchase in the future.

  • No cost-per-click

There is also no cost per click when it comes to organic search, meaning they can provide a large return on investment (ROI) over other forms of paid media. This makes search engine optimisation a sustainable method of marketing – your leads won’t dry up completely the moment you stop paying.

There are however, some things to bear in mind when it comes to search engine optimisation. Firstly, achieving visibility and getting to page one of Google’s search results takes time and thorough research. Not only this, but if big global companies like Amazon or Wikipedia dominate the organic search results, it can be difficult to achieve success.

Search engine optimisation also takes time too. You’ll need to build regular fresh and relevant content and carry out research into the best keywords to go after for your business. There are also other factors to consider with SEO such as technical fixes and link building, which can be quite difficult to master alone.

WHY IS PCC IMPORTANT?

PPC can increase brand awareness, traffic and leads easily and effectively. There are many benefits to this, which include:

  • Page positioning

Paid search results are the first thing that a search user will see as they are always before the fold. This means that a user will always see your website immediately after searching, rather than having to scroll down to the organic posts.

  • Offer a targeted approach

You can target your audience through keywords, time of day, day of the week and geography. PPC is relatively quick to put together which means that you can fine-tune and edit the messaging that you want to promote after testing. If something doesn’t work, you can change easily, allowing you to approach your target audience with strategic and effective messaging.

  • Unique approaches available

There’s a range of different types of adverts you can include, which means you can make the most of different formats to boost website traffic. For example, Google allows you to provide visual shopping ads, which is a feature that is not available with organic search.

It’s important to bear in mind that you will have to allocate a budget for PPC, and it can get expensive. Although you won’t have to pay if someone doesn’t click on your website, when people do, it’ll cost you. Paid advertising will require constant investment – if you stop paying, your ads stop working.

As well as this, PPC is quite easy to copy. If a competitor notices that you are running ads, they may also decide to start running ads. This means that competitors can go after the same target audience as you, and if they have a bigger budget, secure more leads.

SEO & PPC

An integrated approach that considers both search engine optimisation alongside pay per click advertising is the best way to ensure success for your business. By using both digital marketing strategies, you are able to drive greater results.

There are many benefits to running both SEO and PPC together. This includes:

  • You can use the testing and research carried out for your PPC campaigns in your longer-term SEO strategies.
  • Remarketing allows you to stay in front of visitors after they have initially landed on your website through organic search. This allows you to customise messaging.
  • You can target your audience at all stages of the customer journey, from research to purchase.
  • You can increase confidence and awareness in your business by having both organic and paid visibility.

EDGE CREATIVE

Want to find out more about how SEO and PPC can work for you? We can help. We are currently offering a free initial consultation for those interested in seeing what search engine optimisation and pay per click advertising can do. Please call us on 0121 355 8092 or email info@edge-creative.com.

Guest Blogging: Why Your Business Needs It

In this post, we cover the following topics:

For any business, blogging is a hugely valuable tool when it comes to sharing ideas, demonstrating knowledge and, most importantly, driving visitors to your website. Guest blogging is a key strategy you can use to do all of the above.

Many businesses are likely experiencing a quieter period due to the COVID-19 pandemic, meaning it’s now more important than ever to use any downtime to increase the number of visitors on your website. If you’ve not considered guest blogging before, or if you’ve not yet got round to it, now is the time to get started.

WHAT IS GUEST BLOGGING?

Guest blogging is the process of writing content for another website. A guest blog is often written for another business within a similar or linked industry, and a successful guest post will use a topic that applies to both.

By writing a blog for another website, you can help to boost brand awareness by getting your content in front of a wider audience. Guest posts are also a key part of any successful Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) strategy, as they can help your website to attract more traffic.

WHY IS GUEST BLOGGING IMPORTANT?

Guest blogging is an important way of building valuable relationships with other business leaders. It can also help you to drive traffic back to your own website.

If you reach out to another business to write a guest blog for them, they’re likely to want to submit a guest post to your blog as well. This can help you to build connections and save time on providing varied and engaging content for your own audience.

If you’re a start-up or if you’ve just launched a new website, this is really important!

HOW DOES GUEST BLOGGING HELP WITH SEO?

When done successfully, guest blogging can help to drive more traffic back to your website and even boost domain authority. Domain authority is a score ranging from 1 to 100, which predicts a website’s ability to rank in the results page of a search engine. The higher this score is, the better the website will rank.

By publishing high quality content on another relevant website and linking to your own in the process, you can potentially increase your domain authority. This can, in turn benefit your search engine ranking position, which will help you to drive more visitors to your website.

WHERE CAN I SUBMIT A GUEST POST?

There are plenty of ways your business can source guest blogging opportunities. A great place to start for B2B businesses is to reach out to contacts within your industry.

If you request to place a guest post on someone’s website, it’s a good idea for you to offer your connection a space to submit their content as well. This will help out another business, and will allow to build a stronger relationship with them.

For B2C organisations, you can build connections with other bloggers, influencers or other relevant businesses. There are plenty of groups on Facebook you can join to find other bloggers looking to submit a guest post. Once you build these connections, you can return the favour.

If you’re looking for guest post opportunities, we can support you with content marketing services. We can also help you weave your blogs into a wider and more in-depth SEO strategy. We’re also here to help with promoting guest blogs and getting your message to a wider audience.

Talk to us about submitting a guest post on our website and we can provide a free-of-charge consultation with a dedicated Account Manager or Creative Director to discuss your marketing strategy as a whole. Call a member of the team on 0121 355 8092 or email us at info@edge-creative.com to learn more.

“Why is Having a Website Important?” – How to Increase Leads, Sales and Your Bottom Line

When considering including a website in your business strategy, it’s important to think about:

Having a website is essential to increasing brand exposure, nurturing relationships with your customers and improving your bottom line. When you get it right, your website will generate more leads, more sales and most importantly, more money.

WHY IS HAVING A WEBSITE IMPORTANT FOR MY BUSINESS?

When looking for a new product or service, most people’s first port of call will be a search engine. In fact, Google processes over 40,000 search enquiries per second, averaging over 3.5 billion every single day. If you don’t have a website, you’re missing out on getting your business in front of your audience when they’re in the right stage of the customer journey. As such, they will probably take their custom, and money, elsewhere.

If you do have a website, you need to ensure that it is the best it can possibly be. Beginning with your website, your audience are passing judgement on your business and deciding whether they want to initiate a relationship with you. With an easy-to-find website with a clean design and responsive website features, you tick the first box in your audience’s mental checklist. By providing a smooth experience from the moment your audience clicks onto your website, you reflect the positive experience your business can provide.

HOW CAN I CREATE A GOOD WEBSITE EXPERIENCE FOR MY AUDIENCE?

The creation and management of a website has many elements that need to be considered. Firstly, the structure of your website must tailor to your target customer’s needs. For example, if you sell products such as jewellery or clothing, you are likely to need an ecommerce website that allows your business to connect with potential customers in a more streamlined way.

There are also a range of other factors you must consider in order to improve business reputation, increase sales and boost your bottom line with a website. Major design attributes such as the use of graphics, imaging, written content and navigation throughout the website are integral factors in providing a seamless user experience that urges your audience to convert into customers. 

Research has found that the brain makes decisions in just a 20th of a second when viewing a web page. Unless that 20th of a second is positive, your visitors will bounce off your website and straight onto your competitor’s. This is why grabbing their attention straight away is vital.

The type of website design you choose for your business will be dependent on your target audience, services or products and branding, however you should firstly set out some main goals. Do you want customers to enquire about your services? Do you want customers to make a sale directly? Once you have decided this, you can set out designing a clear-cut, professional website that is successful in achieving your wider business goals.

WHAT IS A DOMAIN AND WHY IS IT IMPORTANT?

The first step to getting your website up and running is the purchase of a hosting service. A service provider will host your website for a small annual or monthly fee, and in return, your website will be available and accessible on the web.

Simply, a domain name is the address you type into your website browser address bar to get to a website. For example, ours is https://edge-creative.com.

A lot of companies offer lots of customisation and management services that allow you to access and edit the content of your website from your own computer via a simple username and password login. You may choose a relatively easy to manage, low-cost but effective package when you buy your website, or if you have more experience with the running of a website, you may choose something more complex. This again comes back to your main business goals. If your website is too plain or not user-friendly, your audience are likely to go elsewhere. However, if it’s too complex, they may struggle to find the information they require, and leave your website.

WHERE DO I START WHEN BUILDING A WEBSITE FOR MY BUSINESS?

The creation of a website can seem like a confusing and complex process, especially if you don’t know where to start.

At EDGE Creative, our developers have a keen eye for technical detail that will make a difference to both your visitors’ experience and your bottom line. From ensuring your website has fast load times to ensuring the navigation is engaging and effective, our developers have the right skills and creativity that your website needs.

We can draw upon research into your customers and their journeys to create responsive designs with easy navigation. Enquire today to find out more about building a website to improve your business’s processes by emailing info@edge-creative.com or calling us on 0121 355 8092.

WooCommerce 4.0: What Does It Mean for My Website?

WooCommerce 4.0 will be the second release of 2020 and is currently scheduled for March 13th. As a major release, the update brings many changes which will dramatically impact how e-commerce businesses view their product sales. Some of the main changes you can expect to see are listed below.

ADMIN INTERFACE

One of the main features coming to WooCommerce 4.0 is the inclusion of the new admin interface. This interface provides a modern, JavaScript-driven experience for managing your store and includes:

A New Dashboard

The new dashboard allows you to easily and effectively customise your screen with specific performance indicators which correspond in importance to your store’s operation.

New and Improved Reports

There are a range of new reports which have been optimised for speed and have advanced filters that allow you to delve into your store’s data. This includes reports on revenue, orders, products, categories, coupons, taxes, downloads, stock and customers.

Through these reports, you can see which categories are selling the most in your store, identify customers who are the biggest spenders over the lifetime of their interaction with your brand and analyse which coupons from campaigns are being used.

WooCommerce 4.0 also brings an improved notification experience and new store management tools. The different changes drive WordPress towards a more powerful and reactive experience that makes use of the latest technology to improve the day-to-day running of your store.

EDGE CREATIVE

The release is due on March 13th and will revolutionise how you see product sales. At EDGE Creative, we will be rolling this update out on the relevant client’s website this month as part of their web care plan.

If you are interested in seeing how WooCommerce 4.0 can support you with your store sales, email info@edge-creative.com or call us on 0121 355 8092.

What Does the Google Bert Update Mean for You?

In this post, we’ll cover the following:

Google’s latest update BERT was announced a couple of days ago and will affect 10% of search queries. This makes BERT one of the biggest Google updates of the last 5 years. So, what does this mean for you?

BERT stands for Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers, and it’s all about search and intent. Google defines it as ‘a neural network-based technique for natural language processing.’ In simpler terms, Google has made significant improvements to understanding queries and intent.

WHAT IS THE GOOGLE BERT UPDATE?

BERT is all about understanding search better. Instead of analysing a user’s search query word by word, the new update means that Google will interpret the entire phrase. By doing so, Google can provide more accurate search results.

Previously, slight modifications or spelling mistakes dramatically impacted Google’s results. Now, with Google looking at the entire phrase, the results are more accurate than ever. Google has provided some examples of how looking at the entire phrase will impact the results:

BERT update

WHAT DOES BERT MEAN FOR YOUR BUSINESS?

Firstly, this is not an algorithm that penalises anyone. This means that your business doesn’t have to worry too much about serious penalties that will seriously negatively impact your SEO efforts.

The biggest thing to look for is whether there have been many changes to your traffic. The websites that will perform best following this update will be those which are largely content populated. Here’s a few examples of how a few of our clients have done in the last week compared to the previous:

Increase traffic

Looking at organic traffic alone, our client has improved substantially over the past 7 days when compared to the previous week.

Again, looking at organic traffic alone, the number of users, new users and sessions have all risen.

HOW CAN I STOP MY TRAFFIC FROM DROPPING?

If your traffic appears to be dropping, don’t worry yet! Google has a long history of rolling out updates, then tweaking them in the weeks after.

If you are worried about how your search position has been impacted by BERT, let us know. At EDGE Creative, we can identify the queries or keywords that are causing the traffic drop, run a comparison report and see which queries you have lost traffic for.

We can also assess traffic changes through determining what is ranking now and change or tweak your content to match what is now ranking. If needed, we can also create new content.

The BERT update may be one of the biggest in the last 5 years for SEO and as such, it’s important to keep your content relevant and up to date. If you need support overcoming common content strategy problems, or understanding SEO, we can help. Call us on 0121 355 8092 to see what we can do for you.

SEO Jargon Buster

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is an important part of any organisation’s marketing strategy. However, it’s a process that can often leave people feeling confused about how it works and the meaning behind some of the technical terms associated with it.

If this sounds like you, don’t worry our dedicated SEO experts have got you covered with this SEO Jargon Buster, which will help you grasp a better understanding of the process and how it can benefit your business.

In this post, we’ll cover the following SEO jargon:

WHAT IS SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMISATION?

When a user searches for a particular word or phrase on a search engine such as Google, your website competes against other websites to rank in the results related to that search query.

SEO is essentially the ongoing process of improving your website’s visibility and performance on these search engines for topics related to your industry, products and services.

Without implementing SEO practices into your marketing strategy, your online visibility will be low, meaning your sales and lead potential will be limited.

This is where understanding SEO jargon becomes very useful.

KEYWORDS

Keywords:

The words or phrases that are entered into the search engine.

SERP:

This stands for Search Engine Results Page and is the list of websites related to your search.

Search Volume:

The number of times a keyword was searched, it is usually given as a monthly estimate.

Short-tail Keywords:

Broader queries which tend to have high search volumes.

Long-tail Keywords:

More specific queries which tend to have lower search volumes.

Keyword Ranking:

A website’s organic ranking positioning in a SERP for a particular keyword.

Keyword Difficulty:

A metric used by SEO tool service providers to measure how difficult or easy it would be to rank a page for a particular keyword.

Keyword Stuffing:

The tactic of overusing important keywords in your content and links. This goes against SEO best practices and can harm your chances of a high ranking.

Keyword Cannibalisation:

When a website targets the same keyword across multiple pages.

Commercial Intent:

This refers to when the user is trying to learn more before making a purchase.

Informational Intent:

This refers to when the user is trying to find out more information.

Navigational Intent:

This relates to when the user is trying to find a specific website.

Transactional Intent:

This is when the user is looking to make a purchase but hasn’t decided where to buy from.

These are links from another website to your website.

These are links on a website, that don’t work because they point to a non-existent resource or page.

Links on your website that lead to other pages on your website.

Links on your site that go to another external website.

This relates to the process of acquiring backlinks to your website.

The value or authority a link can pass to its destination.

The number of links on or pointing to a page.

Guest Blogging:

The practice of writing and publishing a blog post on another website.


TECHNICAL

Technical SEO:

Technical optimisations are used to help search engines find, crawl, understand, and index your pages.

Google Algorithm:

These are a set of rules used by Google to rank results when a user performs a search.

Local SEO:

This is optimisation that helps your business be more visible in local search results.

Page Speed:

The amount of time it takes for a web page to load.

HTML:

Hypertext Markup Language. One of the coding languages used to build websites.

Hreflang:

A HTML attribute that is used to tell Google about alternate versions of a web page for different languages and/or regions.

HTTPS:

An encrypted version of HTTP that protects the communications between your browser and server from being intercepted and tampered with by attackers.

Crawler:

Crawlers scour the internet and are mostly used to discover and index web content.

Crawl Budget:

The number of pages a search engine bot will crawl on your website.

Sitemap:

A list of URLs that search engine crawlers use to discover and index your content.

Robots.txt file:

A file that suggests which parts of your site search engines should and shouldn’t crawl.

Indexing: 

This refers to how search engines store and organise the information and the websites that they know about.

Deindexing: 

When a specific page or website has been removed from a search engine index. This can happen if your website violates search engine rules.

Website Authority:

A metric from SEO tool providers that measures the relative strength/popularity of a site. Other names include domain rating and domain authority.

Schema (Data):

Code that helps search engines to better understand and represent your content in the search results.

Meta Robots Tag:

Code that gives crawlers instructions for how to crawl or index your website’s content.

Rendering:

The process of a browser turning a website’s code into a viewable page.

Canonical Tag:

A HTML element that tells search engines which specific URL is the “original” version of a page.

301 Response Code:

A response code that tells search engines that the page has permanently moved to a new URL.

301 Redirect:

An instance of being taken from one URL to another one because the page has been permanently moved.

302 Response Code:

A response code that tells search engines that the page has temporarily moved to a new URL.

404 Response Code:

Also known as 404 not found. A status that says the page or resource can’t be found.


ON-PAGE

On-page SEO:

Optimisations you do on your web page to improve its ranking in search results.

Meta Description:

A snippet of HTML text, which summarises the content of a page.

Title Tag:

A snippet of HTML text, that is used to specify the title of a page.

Heading Tags:

A HTML element that is used to designate headings on your page in order of priority.

Duplicate Content:

Content that appears in more than one place on a website.

Alt Attribute: 

HTML code that provides information to search engines and screen readers to understand the contents of an image.

Anchor Text: 

The words that are hyperlinked to another page. This text provides contextual information about what the page or website being linked to is about.

URL Slug:

The part of the URL that follows the slash (“/”) after the domain name or subfolder.


OFF-PAGE

Off-Page SEO:

Off-page search engine optimisation practices are the factors you do outside your page to improve its rankings. For example, link building.

Social media marketing:

Using social media to a company’s brand, increase sales and drive traffic to a website.

Influencer Marketing:

A type of social media marketing where influencers endorse and promote services or products.


TOOLS

Google Analytics:

A free web tracking tool offered by Google to analyse how visitors interact with your website.

Google Search Console:

A free service from Google that helps you monitor and troubleshoot your website’s appearance in their search results.

Google Business Profile:

A free business listing from Google that shows up in maps and web search results.

Bing Webmaster Tools:

A free tool from Microsoft that helps you monitor and troubleshoot your website’s appearance in Bing’s search results.

EDGE CREATIVE

We are an integrated marketing agency that understands the importance of SEO Strategy alongside a wider content marketing plan. If you are interested in finding out how we can incorporate an SEO plan into your marketing, get in touch by calling 0121 355 8092 or emailing info@edge-creative.com.

Want to see how you can improve? Claim your free SEO and Website audit.

Why Relevant Content Matters

Content marketing is arguably one of the most crucial elements of digital marketing that enables businesses to attract new customers by providing relevant content that answers their queries.

Over the past three years, 75% of businesses have increased their content marketing budget. Educational content can be expensive to create, but brands must continue to produce information to stay above their competitors in search engine results, and also to build authority and brand loyalty within that sector.

In order to make your content marketing strategy a success, relevancy is vital. Creating blog posts, articles and infographics that appeal to a wide audience is important, but if it doesn’t adhere to their specific wants and needs, you are not making the most out of your content marketing efforts.

In today’s modern world, the average consumer is inundated with content. As a result, they are constantly filtering out the content that is not relevant to them. Relevant content shows potential customers that you are catering to their specific needs at a specific point in their user journey. Everything else is noise and so will usually be ignored.

Content is available everywhere and anywhere on the internet. The saturation of so much freely available online information can become overwhelming and confuse users. By creating content that is relevant and informative, you show potential customers that you have something important to say.

RELEVANT CONTENT IMPROVES YOUR PERFORMANCE IN SERP’S

Once you have clicked on a search engine result, you tend to know fairly soon whether the page contains the content you are looking for.

With so much content freely available at the click of a button, we search quickly for indications as to whether the content is relevant to our search query. If not, we click off the page and start again. This all happens in a matter of seconds, and this high bounce rate will affect your overall performance in search engines.

What is SEO? Learn more in our in-depth blog post.

RELEVANT CONTENT POSITIONS YOU AS AN AUTHORITATIVE FIGURE

Creating relevant content on themes relating to your industry helps to position you as an expert within that field. A user is likely to have around seven touchpoints with your brand before they convert, so ensuring that you are visible at all stages of the user journey helps you to become a trusted authority within that sector. Having that constant visibility through content makes consumers more likely to want to do business with your brand because it becomes familiar and shows them that you do know your stuff.

There are a multitude of different factors that search engines take into consideration, such as your URL and page structure, but content is one of the most important elements to a good SEO strategy. Giving your users what they want ultimately drives more potential customers to your site, and when your content is relevant, search engines will recognise this and boost your rankings, which boosts your traffic and ultimately raises your bottom line.

At EDGE Creative, our content team use intricate methods to create content that is relevant to your audience and ideal customer. Whether you need blog posts, infographics or video marketing, our team of specialists can work together to execute a holistic marketing strategy that works.

If you want to revolutionise your content but aren’t quite sure where to start, request your FREE digital audit today.

How to Overcome Common Content Strategy Problems

Today’s widely fragmented and competitive market means that companies are increasingly having to find creative ways to convey their brand. Whether that’s something as simple as sharing compelling images to social media or writing a series of blog pieces, businesses in all industries are seeking fresh ways to engage with their desired target audience through content marketing.

When executed well, you can quickly experience traffic growth in comparison to any competitors who may be yet to adopt content into their overall marketing strategy. In fact, according to research carried out by SEO expert Neil Patel, content marketing leaders experience 7.8x more site traffic than non-leaders. For your content marketing to really pay off, you need to develop a concise content strategy based on what you audience want to see and invest your time into continually refining and improving it. Developing a content marketing strategy that works can be difficult, so we have broken down three common problems that may arise and how to overcome them:

PROBLEM ONE: GETTING FOUND

Ultimately, search engines are created to answers questions. SEO software specialists Moz perfectly describes its purpose as being there to find, understand and organise all the content on the internet in order to offer the most relevant results to the questions that a user is asking. So, if you’re not creating content to best answer the questions that you audience is asking, don’t expect to be found for it.

There are many things that search engines take into consideration when crawling your website. This is everything from your robots.txt file, to your URL’s, page structure (we could go on), but arguably most importantly, your content and keyword selection.

Using appropriate long-tail and semantic keywords is key to helping your content get found.  They are the cornerstone of planning effective content strategies and giving your users what they want, when they want it, ultimately driving more customers and retaining their loyalty because you are truly offering them value.

Ensure that your website gets found through systematic keyword search, hitting users at the right stage in their journey. Avoid guesswork and random brainstorming in searching for relevant keywords and use real data to guide your content.

PROBLEM TWO: CREATIVE BLOCK

To make any content marketing strategy successful, your content needs to be well-timed, relevant, interesting and useful to your audience. The pressure of formulating a plan based on this coupled with your own business objectives can often lead to problems finding inspiration when it comes to developing your content.

Inspiration can come from anywhere. The more you are exposed to through thorough research, the more you will understand exactly what kind of information your target audience are looking for. Sign up for podcasts, blogs, alerts, read more, and get creative!

Although you may get inspiration from other sources, it’s vital that you avoid copying other company’s content marketing strategies. It is your originality combined with a targeted approach which will make your brand survive. Embodying your company’s perspective and creating bespoke content to accompany it should always be at the forefront of your strategy, rather than simply repeating what other people are already saying.

PROBLEM 3: FINDING TIME

Creating fresh content is a time-consuming process. In fact, 42% of writers take up to 2 hours to write just 500 words. For many marketers, the cost of time affects their strategy as internal pressure can often force them to minimise the amount of content they are able to push out.

Make the most out of your current assets and find new and exciting ways to update it and ensure that it is keeping with the current climate. Good content is often evergreen, so by revising and updating, you can drive new traffic without having to reinvent the wheel.

Try experimenting with other types of content such as videos or podcasts which are both great for improving your SEO. Grab your audience’s attention with something that is easy for them to engage with, and once have their attention, push them to other forms of content you have already created.

Repurposing content reduces pressure to produce, creates new forms of content easily and efficiently and allows you to target wider audiences. Don’t forget – content doesn’t just refer to writing. Social media posts, photographs and videos are all important aspects of content you should embody into your strategy.

As an integrated marketing agency, our content team use intricate methods and strong strategy to create content that is unique and optimised for search. Whether it’s video marketing, blog writing or infographic designing, our team of graphic designers, content writers and video specialists can work together to create and execute a holistic marketing strategy that works. If you are considering outsourcing your marketing and would like to invest into your content strategy, please contact us on 0121 355 8092 or email info@edge-creative.com.

Request a free consultation today.

SOURCES:

https://neilpatel.com/blog/38-content-marketing-stats-that-every-marketer-needs-to-know/

https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/blogging-time-benchmark

https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo/how-search-engines-operate

Element 26: What is Video SEO and Why is It Important?

Video SEO is changing the way businesses use video online to increase both the visibility and the value of their brand. In this exclusive guest blog, our partner Element 26 explains the importance of video SEO.

GUEST BLOG BY ELEMENT 26

As we covered in our blog ‘online video is no longer nice to have’, with video becoming increasingly important to the way businesses communicate online, the question of how to optimise your video content is no longer something that can be easily ignored.

Search engine optimisation is the process of making the content on your website more discoverable and the goal is usually to improve both the quantity and the quality of inbound traffic.

Effective video SEO will utilise the data contained within your videos to provide search engines with dense clusters of information about your content.

Why is this important? Because the internet has become profoundly visual and users are watching more video content than ever before. Also, because video is considered harder to produce than most other pieces of content, Google gives preferential treatment to those sites which contain video over those containing less rich data.

According to Animoto, 4 times as many customers would rather watch a video about a product than read about it.

Effective SEO should always prioritise the human experience. Google knows this as evidenced in all the recent algorithmic updates, which to date have all been about supporting users with more relevant search results (SERPs).

There are two components to effective video SEO. First of all, your content needs to be marked up properly to let search engines know what the content is about. Frankly, without this optimisation, search engines are blind to what your video content contains.

Then your videos need to be made relevant to your customer’s needs. This means there should be a strategic rationale behind why you’re making each video so that it can address any particular pain points your prospects might be experiencing.

Often referred to as metadata (the data about data), this additional information will not only help search engines get a read on what your videos are about, but it will also do the same thing for users.

Some quick wins for improving your video SEO include:

  1. Giving your video files a descriptive name (eg _companyname_videosubject_date_)
  2. Adding a description to your videos complete with relevant keywords
  3. Uploading a separate thumbnail with a descriptive title
  4. Providing a subtitle file to support your uploaded videos.

The subtitle file is sadly often overlooked when it really shouldn’t be. Referred to as a SubRip Subtitle file (or an SRT for short). The subtitle track is incredibly powerful as it is literally a written transcript of what is said within the video.

Power Tip: when going on camera, get your keywords loaded into the dialogue as this will impact the effectiveness of your videos once it is transcribed into a subtitle file.

Whilst you can rely on free or low-cost services such as YouTube or Vimeo to host your videos, these aren’t always the best place for business videos.

YouTube for example has an ad monetisation strategy at its core. This means that it has a vested interest in keeping users on YouTube for as long as possible so it can serve them with more ads.

In our experience, when our clients have opted to host their video content on YouTube, whilst it does indeed rank highly in search, the user is then directed towards YouTube itself rather than to our client’s website.

Clearly this isn’t the preferred outcome because once your prospect is on YouTube, they’re likely to be served other videos from your competitors.

Imagine this scenario: you run an emerging clothing brand based in Solihull making sports clothing for cyclists (very specific I know). You make a video and host it on YouTube. You then embed this video on your website using the YouTube embed code.

A prospect in Maypole decides she wants a new pair of cycling shorts and visits Google to perform a search. As Google is very smart and knows where the prospect is located, your video appears towards the top of the search results, directly below all the paid advertising. Happy days… or so it would seem.

The prospect then clicks the link and travels to YouTube to watch your video. She likes the video and watches it all the way to the end. So far so good, except for the fact YouTube has autoplay on by default and no sooner has the video finished, then another video begins to play. This is not such good news because the next video is from another sports clothing manufacturer based in Coventry.

Whilst on the flip side, your business is at least in this prospect’s consideration set, a preferable journey would look more like this:

The prospect searches for her cycling shorts. Your website ranks highly because the video on the site has significantly influenced the on-page value of the site. The prospect then clicks through to your website where you have optimised the user experience around the video content.

The prospect becomes a customer by making the purchase directly on your site without ever having had any dealings with the competitor brand at all.

A day or so later, the customer receives an email from your business containing a video thanking them for doing business with you. Perhaps the email also contains a discount code on her next purchase.

In order to utilise video in this way and to capitalise on all the benefits of video SEO, it is usually a good idea to use an online video platform such as Wistia or TwentyThree.

Online video platforms like these allow you to incorporate video into your site so you can leverage things like the description and the subtitle track.

EDGE CREATIVE

At EDGE Creative, we have over 14 years’ worth of experience in delivering excellent search engine optimised campaigns to a variety of clients across a broad spectrum of industries. With our solid and established SEO team, we have been able to develop and refine all the finer details in our process. In order to find out more about how EDGE Creative and our partner Element 26 can help you revolutionise your marketing, get in touch by calling 0121 355 8092.

This blog is a guest blog supplied by Nathan Haines of Element 26.