Mobile compatible marketing

Mobile compatible marketing -ABC guide

Mobile compatible marketing – ‘going mobile’ or being ‘mobile compatible’ is one of the most current topics in digital marketing. Customers often ask us to factor this in to our solutions and it is for all the right reasons.

This simple ABC gives you an overview of the main considerations that affect moving your communications into mobile territory

A – relevance

You should use the analytical information available to you to decide just how important mobile compatible marketing is. Often when we look at analytics for our clients, the results aren’t what our customers expect. This isn’t solely specific to the use of mobile either. It is surprising how many organisations still don’t use analytics to evaluate their online and digital marketing investments. It’s a free service and helps you make informed decisions about developing your online and email strategies.
Keep your choices in perspective.

B – design

The whole point of mobile compatible marketing is useability. Responsive websites and email work on the principle that on a smaller screen (than a desktop) they look different. This may mean bigger and fewer buttons, larger images and simplified navigation.
The general rule of thumb for us is – the rule of thumb. If a user has to use any more than their thumb to navigate your media, it has failed. If, however you can successfully navigate your media with the use of a single thumb, the design is ticking the first part of the ‘designed for mobile’ criteria. There are other considerations too, including colour choices, font sizes.
The primary focus is the rule of thumb.

C – investment

Going mobile doesn’t need to cost a fortune and you are able to adapt existing collateral relatively easy. Brand new collateral is even easier to achieve the cross over with many templates and themes being responsive out of the box. These form a strong set of foundations to edit and tweak to make them suit your needs exactly.
In terms of budgeting, you will need to allow additional resource for design and programming but its not something you need to do all at once. If you follow the advice in A and B you’ll find that your budget will stretch and accommodate a number of mobile optimised solutions without causing any major upsets.

In conclusion, moving to mobile compatible marketing is as easy as it is effective.

If you need help taking your collateral to mobile readiness, there’s plenty of help at hand.

By Ryan Mullins

Does Social Media improve your Search Ranking?

Does Social Media Improve Your Search Ranking

Whether you like it or not, the days of SEO only being about relevant keywords are a thing of the past. A common question from our customers is does social media improve your search ranking
 
Google has found a different way to measure the popularity of your website – social media.
The world’s most popular search engine now uses social signals to tell them what’s popular. The more shares, +1s  and re-tweets you get, the higher your SEO ranking. So does social media improve your search ranking, it does now.
 
[typography font=”Quattrocento Sans” size=”24″ size_format=”px”]Improve your social efforts; help with that all important search engine ranking – Some tips.[/typography]

Content

 
[typography font=”Quattrocento Sans” size=”16″ size_format=”px”]Get your content right  – It’s not all about you. 
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Do – Get inside your potential customer’s mind. What might interest them, what useful information might they want to read about? Think beyond what your company offers. It’s OK for your content to have nothing to do with your product, you’re trying to encourage users to engage with you. Don’t – talk about yourselves and start talking about your customers. If you want people to share your content this is one piece of advice that’s important to take on board.
 
[typography font=”Quattrocento Sans” size=”16″ size_format=”px”]Write how you speak 
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Do – Try writing as you speak, as this is how people search. Interesting, free flowing content is also much more likely to attract social interaction.
Don’t  – Bother with boring, keyword stuffed content. Google is smart and will be able to tell that your content is all just keywords & they won’t bother ranking it!
 
[typography font=”Quattrocento Sans” size=”16″ size_format=”px”]Make Sharing Easy [/typography]
Do -. Always include social icons on all your content to allow users to share your stories with the click of a button Don’t – Get obsessed about how many likes you get for your posts. The shares and re-tweets are what count most. Social sharing is the new word of mouth marketing – and we all know how valuable that is for a brand.

Images And Image Based Social Media

 
[typography font=”Quattrocento Sans” size=”16″ size_format=”px”]Don’t overlook the use of images 
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Do – Use Images to add depth to your content. Images allow you an opportunity to extend your message’s reach. Make the most of image specific searches. Don’t – Be too wordy. Remember that most people these days engage on their smart phones or tablets. Smaller screens mean scrolling, your user’s attention will be easier to hold if you keep it short and sweet.
 
[typography font=”Quattrocento Sans” size=”16″ size_format=”px”]Review your Performance – Plot a Trend[/typography]
Do – Record your results. Look at what works, spot trends and focus on how to make this even better. Don’t – Post at the wrong times. Example – Vodka companies will have greater success posting on Friday afternoon than on Monday morning.
 
Remember, receiving likes for each post is great. However the thing gets you up those search rankings is shares and re-tweets.

Google hack – how to achieve page 1 ranking

How do you get your website onto page 1 on google and other search engines?

The secret to achieving a Google page 1 ranking

Achieving a Google search page 1 ranking has swiftly become the Holy Grail for online businesses—after all, how many punters ever bother to go onto the second page of a search? And reaching this nirvana has spawned a whole new industry of SEO consultants and experts who would have you believe there is some arcane and complex magic for nudging your way up the search results.

But…getting onto page 1 for a Google search isn’t difficult at all!

Yes—that’s true, despite what SEO and internet gurus might have you believe. It’s simply a matter of following a specific formula and being mindful of competition for the phrases you want to rank for. And we’re willing to share the secret with you, so you can reconfigure your pages to achieve the Google, Bing or Yahoo search ranking you want.

Just a word before you start…

Take this example: a local insurance broker approached us and said, “We want to appear on page 1 of Google.”

We asked them what search term they wanted to achieve page 1 for.

“Insurance!” they said, naturally enough.

We had to ask, “How deep are your pockets?”

With the pressure of online competition, not deep enough! And this is the root of the problem. This company, by wanting to rank on page 1 for “insurance” was setting itself up in competition with all the hundreds of thousands of other insurance companies all over the world. And although “insurance” is an applicable search term for this small local business, it does nothing to set them apart from the rest of the competition.

The problem is, how do you rank on page 1 without diluting your message?

It’s all to do with the search terms you choose. If you pick a high competition key phrase that attracts a huge volume of searches, you’ll find it nigh on impossible to achieve a page 1 rank on Google or any of the other search engines. Not totally impossible—but if you do get to the top, your competitors will be snapping at your heels and you’ll find it incredibly difficult to maintain your position.

So how can you achieve a page 1 ranking?

Here’s our guide to raising your page up the search engine ranks.

  1. Research your keywords to differentiate your business. For example, if you’re an insurance broker in Bedford, specialising in commercial risks, don’t attempt to be page 1 for “insurance”. You’ll be better served by ranking for “commercial insurance Bedford”.
  2. Understand search volumes. Once you’ve identified some possible search phrases for your business, you need to be mindful of how many people are using them. After all, being number 1 for a phrase that nobody is using isn’t going to make you particularly discoverable.
  3. Identify your site’s key pages. There will be certain pages on your site that are valuable to you and your customers. You need to know which pages these are and what information your visitors are looking for. Use analytics to identify your top ranking pages.
  4. Optimise your site to make it easier for Google to read. Google isn’t human and it needs information to be configured in a specific way in order to find it. If you leave out what it’s looking for, your pages won’t rank.  Every single page needs to contain the following information:
  • Key phrases that are specific to the page
  • META Title – this needs to contain the key phrase(s)
  • URL – must contain the key phrase(s)
  • META Description – also needs to contain the key phrase(s)
  • The first, second and final paragraphs must all feature the key phrase(s)

If this still seems a little daunting or if you simply haven’t the time to review all the pages on your site, we can help you to gain a page 1 ranking for Google and other search engines, such as Bing and Yahoo. Our first step is to assess your site and make a recommendation on how much work will be required. Then you can decide whether you’d like us to transform your search engine rankings.