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Sales & Marketing

Local SEO – A More Targeted Approach to Marketing Your SME

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), when implemented strategically, is one of the most cost-effective local marketing strategies within the digital landscape, perfect for your SME. SEO pursues audiences actively seeking a specific product or service and achieves cut through by ranking and displaying your business or services to those looking for it at a time when they are most likely to take action on your marketing message.

But What Is SEO?

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the practice of increasing the quantity and quality of traffic to your website through organic search engine results.

SEO in its simplest form, is the process of optimising web assets in a means that is complementary to Google’s search algorithm. There are two factors that come together to facilitate successful optimisation: on-page and off-page properties. On-page elements are those that are placed on your website. Off-page link building undertakings are those that exist externally on third-party websites.

11 SEO Factors To Keep In Mind To Drive Traffic To Your Website

Are you ready to increase visitors to your website and get them to subscribe, buy or call?

We asked a reputable and leading SEO agency what factors were important for driving quality traffic to your website when implementing SEO. These were their recommendations:

Web Page Titles: A vital element for both user engagement and search engine algorithms, web page titles briefly and accurately describe the topic and theme of the landing page.

Meta Descriptions: Not only are meta descriptions CTA driven, they assist search engines when indexing your web pages through relevant keywords to the content they describe.

Header Tags: Critical in assisting search engines in knowing what your page is about, header tags need to be fully optimised in conjunction with a pre-agreed SEO strategy.

Domain Level Links: This is simply a quality link from a third party site to a website’s home page. Over 150 SEO experts surveyed said DLL’s are Google’s most important ranking factor.

Page Level Links: Equally as important as a domain level link, third party PLL’s point to an individual webpage increasing the authority of this page on your website.

URL Structure: SEO experts ensure that both users and search engines are able to easily understand what is on each page just by looking at the URL. Say ciao to outdated URLs, such as /digital-9589=marketing

Internal Link Structure: A website’s internal links assist Google in establishing a hierarchy of importance. This enables you to have complete control over which pages you want to provide the most amount of link value towards.

Landing Page Content: Content on your site devised to appease both SEO algorithms and simultaneously is engaging for visitors.

Blog Content: If content is king, the context it sits within is queen. Increase your website’s long tail keywords and supporting contextual density with inspiring, educational blog content from experienced SEO writers that resides either on your site or on third party sites with backlinks back to your site or webpage.

User Engagement: With search engines constantly striving to improve their worth, prove to Google that your page is the thought leader in the industry with quality, engaging and resourceful content.

Website Speed: Page speed is important for SEO rankings and of course, positive user experiences.

Where Can I Get Good Help For SEO? What Does Good Look Like?

SEO is a specialist marketing activity. Therefore, you should seek a trusted SEO agency who can create bespoke SEO strategies according to your business’s objectives. A credible agency will conduct a thorough analysis or audit of your website, complete a competitive analysis, understand your unique selling proposition (and ensure it’s clear to your intended target audience) and asses your site’s online authority relative to the competition. With this information, the SEO agency will then develop a solution that is effective and delivers a sustainable, short and long-term ROI whilst being transparent with you along each stage of the process.

A credible agency will also deliver insightful monthly reports for you, ensuring you are clear of your progress and where improvements can be made to enhance your SEO success. Why? Because the SEO landscape is forever evolving.

SEO can be utilised as a localised, cost effective advertising method which should be considered by all SMEs.

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Sales & Marketing

How to Use AI to Boost Your Marketing Efforts

The transformation which artificial intelligence and machine learning have introduced into the tech world is unparalleled. With the innovation of the likes of digital assistants and self-driving cars, what was once considered science fiction has now begun to materialize. For digital marketing, artificial intelligence offers an incredibly variegated assortment of opportunities. Ranging from process automation to consumer behavior analysis, to improved data gathering methods, marketing executives can now breathe more easily, as much of the work they have to do has become a lot more simplified. Here, we will consider ways in which artificial intelligence will help improve your marketing success and reduce your physical exertion.

Faster Data Gathering Methods

With the new strategies for gathering information for sponsored ads which are now being utilized by Google, Facebook and other online platforms, gathering relevant information for making functional marketing decisions has become a lot easier. These days, with the co-integration of online based platforms and software, advertisers can now effectively target the users of their products even without having to conduct polls. There are now different AI-based apps which can analyze user behavior, and tailor your offer to a specific user. Your browsing history is analyzed and used for strategically positioning ads that are relevant to you. Advertisers can now take advantage of this to target ads to specific users across the web. Advertising content can now target only people who have searched for, talked about or visited websites containing a particular product or service.

More Custom Support

With the arrival of artificial intelligence and the innovation of chatbots, trade and sales on the internet have become a lot more efficient and functional. There are not bots that can help you do anything from choose the right product for your specific needs, to helping you track an order you have placed with a specific website.

Also, the innovation of chatbots comes with very effective customer support. People have gotten accustomed to getting answers right away, and if you are a small company, you often can’t afford to hire a 24/7 customer support rep. Chatbots help you cut down the costs and are there to answer the questions and complaints of your customers, be it the middle of the night or a Sunday. If they run into a problem they can’t solve, they will reroute it to a human customer service agent – but the customer will still know that their problem is being solved. This will leave your human agents plenty of time to focus on more meaningful and important tasks.

Consumer Behavior Analysis

With artificial intelligence, analyzing consumer and user behavior online has become a lot easier. In the past, it had to be accomplished through polls, but these days, consumer behavior can be tracked and monitored through the use of this technology and the information can be used to focus marketing campaigns a lot more. What this does for the digital marketing executive is that it reduces the effort he needs to put into researching his marketing campaigns and helps their targeting be a lot more accurate. In the past, running ads was difficult and expensive because to launch ads online, marketers needed to first survey the demographic of people interested in the product or service and target that amount of people. This method was haphazard and barely effective. Ads popped up on the screens of people who did not need them and people reacted to this negatively, affecting the performance of some of those businesses and products online. But with this new technology, online based ads can be focused to target only those who have shown some form of interest in the particular product or who search for information related to the particular product.

Final Words

The reality of artificial intelligence is incredibly satisfying or ultimately overwhelming; because while we have unlocked several ways in which this technological innovation can help us, the full capacity of artificial intelligence is yet to be seen.

About Author

Michael Deane is a marketing executive for Servisbot, always interested in the next big thing developing in the world of AI and machine learning.

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Sales & Marketing

How to Create Marketing Content When You’re Out of Ideas

It happens to the best of us. You find yourself staring at a blank page, unable to write anything that sticks. All the usual tricks don’t work, and you finally reach the conclusion you’ve been trying to avoid the whole time: you’re out of ideas. Now, this isn’t as bad as it sounds. Marketers who create content regularly will eventually exhaust typical strategic plays like blogs, social-media posts, and email threads. The fact that you’ve made a ton of marketing material over the years is actually great news, and it can help you fashion new ideas in a pinch. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Here’s a step-by-step guide to getting the job done under adverse conditions:

Think Outside of the Bubble 

Don’t roll your eyes just yet. Yes, thinking outside the box is a worn-out cliche that isn’t going to help you build content at all. It’s too abstract to provide any value. However, we as marketers often stick to the things we know and don’t often venture outside of our personal “bubble” (also known as the dreaded “echo chamber”). When you’re low on fresh blog ideas it’s time to move outside of that comfort zone and see what else is going on in the rest of the world. Look for current events that tie in to your product or service. Even a tangential connection is okay. Furthermore, seeing how rival companies handle their content creation can help inspire your own team.

Repackage 

The next time you feel stuck on a project, remember that you’re sitting on a potential gold mine of good ideas. Getting extra mileage out of compelling content pieces from years gone by is a tremendous way to bust out of writer’s block. Consider combining a series of successful blog posts into a pillar page. Or else, think about repurposing a dynamite social media post into an email thread. Keep in mind that this is YOUR content –– so don’t feel bad about using it again. It’s one of the keys to constructing a marketing campaign that will last the test of time.

Switch Media 

Does your team currently use video? If not, then it’s probably high time to start now. That’s because videos are not only engaging, but also provide the perfect way to transfer old content to a new, more exciting medium. After all, what’s more likely to grab your attention: a blog post about how a hiring a party bus company will improve your evening out, or a video of actual customers riding a party bus and having a blast. That’s just one example, but note all businesses and professionals of varying skill levels can use videos to create new content in a jam. You don’t have to be Steven Spielberg to make an effective video for your business.

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Sales & Marketing

Do You Know How Much Each Client Is Worth To Your Business?

The lifetime value of each client is defined as the total gross profit that you accumulate from a customer over their lifetime of doing business with you less the acquisition cost and marketing expenses over their lifetime.

When you know this value, you also know exactly how much money you can spend to acquire a client through marketing.

Do you realize the power that gives you as a small business owner? Did you know that by knowing your customer lifetime value, you can literally dominate your market and eliminate your competition in the minds of your clients?

What you need to know…

Most business owners know intuitively that it’s much easier to make an additional sale to a current client than it is to make that first sale that acquires that client. Unfortunately, they don’t do enough to figure out how they can sell more to their existing client base.

Why you need to know this…

It’s important to understand that a client who has had an exceptional experience with your product or service is naturally going to look to you to help them fulfill their other needs with additional products. They now trust you, and are happy with the relationship they have with you. You should take advantage of their trust and make an offer for another product/service immediately after their initial purchase, and schedule frequent campaigns to offer more to your client base.

The cost to you if you fail to act…

When your customers recognize that you provide them with value, they will continue to purchase from you. But, you can’t assume they will just call you up and ask you to sell them something. You have to make the effort to ask for their order.

So are you doing that?

Do you know how to do that?

Are you aware that all of this can be put on auto-pilot, and requires no further action on your part whatsoever?

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Sales & Marketing

Sport Management Careers: Not Just About Stereotyping

When one starts to mention careers in sports management, the idea of an NFL coach quickly springs to a lot of minds.

Of course, this was the basis of the field a couple of decades ago. Now, things have changed.

A lot of universities are starting to offer graduates a path into sports management careers, and suffice to say, it doesn’t involve being the coach of an NFL team.

Instead, this is a career type that now spans far and wide. As most of us have come to know, sport is an industry which is worth billions. This is made up through a whole concoction of different areas, including hospitality, broadcasting and more. It means that there are a lot of vacancies – some of which pay very high salaries indeed. Or, as is the case with Get Entrepreneurial, they present some fantastic opportunities to stretch into your own business – and offering your services to these sporting organizations as a consultant.

Following on from the above, let’s quash all of the stereotypes that are associated with sports management careers, and show what the modern-day graduate really can move into.

Sports marketing

This is one of those areas of the industry where the ceiling really can be as high as you specify. At the top end, you’ll be dealing with athletes themselves, attempting to broker the best sponsorship deals for companies that will involve the individual in question being at the centre of various products.

If we move down a notch somewhat, sports marketing opens up some more. Looking after a social media account might seem quite small, particularly when compared to the above, but with many sports teams and companies having followers in their millions this is something that carries a lot of responsibility.

Ultimately, careers within marketing in sport have exploded over the last few years, and it’s only going to get bigger.

Corporate partnerships

Another hugely lucrative career to move into involves corporate partnerships. While the big TV broadcasting deals might often steal the headlines, one only has to delve into the finances of sports clubs to see exactly how much they are coining in through partnerships. For example, if we head to the UK, Manchester United charge £125,000 for a corporate suite for a season. Considering the fact that this is just a fraction of their corporate activity, one can start to appreciate the huge numbers relatively quickly.

Financial and contract analysis

Next on the list is a type of profession that is available in most industries, but a lot of people see financial and contract analysts in the sports industry as quite lucky. After all, these are the individuals looking after some huge player contracts, and negotiating huge deals in the process.

To say that they have a lot of responsibility would be an understatement, particularly with the outside influence of fans of the team regularly having their say on how a club might be spending its money.

Facility operations

Next on the list are those involved in facility operations. Again, when it comes to sport this is quite a niche role – one that isn’t really the same as any other industry.

If you become a facility operations manager, you are responsible for the venue in question. The fact that one day might relate to ticket sales, while another might relate to the aesthetics of the arena, means that it’s a varied role to say the least.