Monthly Archives: October 2015

Trick or Treat … From The Marketing Dogs

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Trick or Treat

Trick or Treat

Bonjour humans

You’ve not heard from us for a while, as Autumn has fallen and we have been very busy protecting our humans from all of the leaves throwing themselves from the trees. The humans laugh at us but we think they’re barking mad!

We’ve also been busy greeting the human’s customers, making them feel very welcome, and sometimes giving them some of our extra fur to keep them warm. Which is all part of our pawesome customer service.

So we’re already at that spooky time of year George in fancy dressagain, which means mum and the team have had chance to dress us up.

Though I woof love to strut the show in my outfits, Chops is not a fan, and normally gets me to help her rip it off straight away. It is definitely my favourite time of year, being wrapped up nice and cosy, getting to wear brrrrrrilliant outfits and running around in leaves.

Chops seems a little bit disappointed that the sun bathing in the foyer season is over. I’ve tried to convince her it’s the best with tails tales of warm sausages, cosy blankets and extra fuss from the humans as they want warm cuddles, but she is still feeling a little blue that summer is over. So I thought I’d tell her some Halloween jokes to cheer her up and get her as excited as I am.

Did you want to hear them?

Why don’t ghosts like rain on Halloween? … It dampens their spirits!

What’s a monsters favourite dessert? … I-Scream!

Why did the skeleton go to a BBQ? … For the spare ribs!

What do witches put on their hair? … Scare Spray!

How do you fix a jack o lantern? … With a pumpkin patch!

I know; I am hilarious. What do you think chops?

Chops looking unimpressed

Hmmm she doesn’t seem impressed …

I think maybe I’m better at tricks than I am jokes, and we both love doing tricks if it means treats!

George, Chops and Puppy being well behaved

Just look how well behaved we are! This is when our clients WKD trained dogs bought one of their puppies in to see us. She knew a lot more tricks than we did! But we kept up as best we could.

We do know a lot of tricks though like … sitting … and sleeping …and saying hello to the team. They might not be backflips and riding skateboards, but we’re business dogs, we’ve got a bit more decorum!

We’d love to see our fellow canine pals though doing some fantastic tricks, so feel free to comment, or come see us on twitter!

We’re off to devour the rest of our treats now.

Love and paws,

Chops and George

Happy Halloween!

Until next time, you can catch up on all our adventures in our blog!

How do you make the essential exciting?

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How do you make the essential exciting

How do you make the essential exciting

It can be hard to market your business at the best of times, but it begins to seem a bigger challenge when your industry is seen as ‘essential’ rather than exciting.

When you have impressive new products like phones, gadgets or ‘hoverboards’ coming out everyday with huge budgets behind them, it can be hard to compete, and make people want what they actually need to buy. So if your not making a product with a fruit logo on it, how do you go about getting people to buy it?

 

Be Human

This sounds simple, but can be harder in practice. If you are selling a B2B product for example, you are marketing a business product to another business, and it can be easy to slip into an almost robotic approach. So you can’t forget that you are still marketing to people.

Using real examples can be a great starting point, so potential customers can see how you actually work. Do people make mistakes when using your product? Is it common for people to overcomplicate your service? Do not many people understand the best practice when it comes to your industry? Then talk to them, and use these examples to inspire, educate or for a bit of a giggle, to connect with them on a human level.

Social Media is a great way to do this, but it may take a bit of time to get yourself established. There are so many social networks now it can be hard to choose which would be best. However, it also means you can reach your customers in a variety of ways.

Does your industry need lots of practical advice? Get blogging. Want people to understand your products further? Go visual with Pinterest. Want to do a ‘how to’ video, or show your engineers at work? Start a Youtube channel with factual information, alongside some out-takes when it may not have quite gone to plan.

All of these little snippets of information give your customers an idea of who you are as people, and if you are the type of people they would like to work with. If they want the ins and outs of what you do, they will go to your website or give you a call, but to convince them you’re the ones they want to work with, get posting.

Even in B2B, you are still marketing to people, be human!

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Develop your own voice

Which leads very nicely on to my next point, developing your own voice.

When your in a competitive industry, with a product everyone needs, it can be easy to fall into the same line as everyone else. Copying product descriptions from manufacturers, having the same benefits and features, and marketing to the same group of people.

Make sure you stand out by developing your own voice, which carries through all of your marketing material, your social presence and your team as a whole. Now, tone of voice for your brand is a whole other blog in it’s self (and a conversation we have a lot with clients in the office) but you need to consider: your values, your vocabulary and your humour. Are you slightly sarcastic, or just add in the occasional one liners? Are you appealing to customers who will only accept the Queen’s English, or perhaps a younger generation who may appreciate more down to earth posts? What are your personal values as well as the companies? Let all this shine through on your posts, but make sure you keep this consistent.

Showing your passion for your profession is always a great way to connect with customers. Even with the most boring product in the world, if it sold with someone who clearly has passion in it, you would be more inclined to at least take a second look. As passion is not only contagious, but it shows a belief in what you are doing, it shows your putting all of your energy into it, so it has to worth something.

Make sure you stand out by developing your own voice.

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Make your product real to buyers

Your product is real, you know it’s benefits and features inside out. But how does it actual benefit that person? How is it going to shape their day?

It can be hard to get this across, especially with products people take for granted, or ones people don’t entirely understand how it helps then, just that they should have it.

A method used by a lot of companies now is using a narrative within their marketing or advert. Let’s use Direct Line as an example. Direct Line, in case you don’t know, are an insurance company, and for this example, I’ll be focusing on their car insurance.

Everyone needs car insurance, as it is a legal requirement. There are plenty of providers of this, plenty of choice, and everyone knows that they need it in case of an accident, but it’s not always clear what that actual means for the person. In their latest run of adverts, Harvey Keitel whisks in to help direct line customers who face a series of woes.

The most recent advert is of a hen party who are involved in a bump, thinking their day is ruined, when Keitel pops in to say, because you’re insured with us, your entitled to a hire car, and continue your day. The other party involved in the crash is stuck there, as their insurance does not provide this.

 

 

From the advert the customer can visualise that, of course they would have insurance on their car, but f they have Direct Line insurance, they will be well looked after, and your day doesn’t have to end. It will remind those unfortunate enough to have had a bump and be stuck, that actual buying the same ‘product’ from them would mean a totally different outcome to that day.

Their whole advert series involving Keitel show the real time effects and benefits the service has to it’s users, and showcases effectively that their ‘essential’ product stands out from the rest.

Show the real time effects and benefits your product or service has to it’s users.

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Make it visual

Oh the old saying, a picture speaks a thousand words. But it really does, as does video, like we can see in the point above.

In an age where we are content saturated, sometimes we need to use visuals to grab a bit more attention, or to get our message across a bit quicker.

There are a huge amount of examples of visual marketing done well, but I am going to use Tipp Ex to illustrate this particular point.

Now Tipp Ex face a different horizon to when they started business, a situation which many companies find themselves in now. Their product was a particular need when pen and paper were the norm. This was an age before computers became the staple for the majority of offices. So what now?

Tipp Ex went clever with their marketing, and using modern technology and ideas bought themselves into the modern age, as well as engaging with a whole new host of customers. Below, you can see their advert ‘a hunter and a bear’.

 

 

Now there we have an advert that shows their brand voice with quite a humorous advert, their product is made real and relevant to potential customers, and it has a very human aspect to it.

Use visuals and video to get your message out there in a way your potential customers may not have considered it before.

Use visuals and video to get your message out there.

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Keep it simple

Sometimes the things you need to buy aren’t always the simplest to understand.

Take for example applying for a mortgage. It is something the majority of us will need to go through within our lifetimes, and though it can be an exciting purchase, it is more likely to cause panic than jubilation.

Like with car insurance, It is a market with plenty of choice, but one people don’t know much about. So they stick to the big names they know and that’s it. By keeping it simple, you instantly reassure that potential customer, making them more likely to pop in and enquire.

 

Remember, no brand is too boring to market, you just have to find what makes it amazing, and share that with others. Use the tips above, do a bit more research into your industry competitors, and get going!

 

However, if you are struggling to feel inspired, don’t worry! Give us a call, and pop in for a chat. It’s no obligation and might just give you the ideas you need. Or you can read more about branding in our blogs. 

 

Social media tips for seasonal marketing

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Social media tips for seasonal marketing

Social media tips for seasonal marketing

Social media can be hard to manage at the best of times. But throw in seasonal events, and more people using social networks, it can be hard to know where to start. How to get noticed, and how to make it work for you.

We have a few tips to get you organised, get your customers excited for your business and be able to repeat your success.

 

Start early, plan ahead

A lot of companies make the mistake with their social media, in thinking that you can throw up a few themed status’s before Halloween/bonfire night/Christmas, and the sales will come rolling in. Then when they don’t, it is declared that social media doesn’t work, and it is a waste of time.

Social Media is a brilliant tool. But it does need to be given careful planning for it to work. Take the time to create a content calendar. Which is not just selling your products, but contains useful information. And perhaps a little seasonal humour. Ease your customers into the season, and ensure they have a reason to keep looking out for your updates.

This planning can take a lot more time than you expect, so start planning early. If you use a scheduling tool like Hootsuite, you can schedule some tweets in advance, keeping things nice and organised.

 

Create a seasonal brand image

Now we agree this doesn’t work for every company. But some businesses can benefit from creating a seasonal brand image.

As humans, when it begins to get to winter, we dress ourselves up in our wintery finery. As we get closer to Christmas, we dress our houses, our tree and anything we can get our hands on really.

Creating a seasonal brand image communicates that message that you are ready for Christmas (or Halloween or bonfire night). As it’s a different from the norm, it catches people’s eye. So if you have people scrolling through their twitter news feed, and you’ve updated your image, they would be more likely to stop and check your content, than if you kept the same image.

 

Run a Facebook competition

There is a lot going on in the run up to big seasonal events. So running a competition can give people a reason to engage more with your company. Plus it is always nice to reward your customers, just for being them.

Don’t be mistaken though, you can no longer run competitions to encourage people to like your page. But a competition is a great way to bring awareness to offers you are already running. Say for example, you run a cafe, and in the winter months you are offering a free hot drink with every bacon roll. You could run a competition for a free breakfast every week, if you check yourself in to the café. More customers come in, are happy they’ve received a free hot drink. They check in and share your business online, and more people see it. You can also share the ‘winners’ of the competition enjoying their breakfast, to get people to keep checking in for a chance to win.

 

Christmas Twitter Hashtag

You can do a similar thing to the Facebook competitions, but with a Twitter hashtag. The hashtag gives a seasonal feel to your social posts, and again encourages users to engage.

Hashtag’s are something that have become a bit more of a big deal in the last few years. Especially with some bigger companies focusing their whole campaigns around a hashtag. Which you can read about in our post about popular Christmas campaigns.

So take some time to discuss this and what would work for your business and what message you want to send this season.

 

Get customers sharing their hints and tips

Rather than having a company hashtag, you could create a customer based hashtag. One for them to share their best seasonal tips. Though you can do this as an additional too, and across all your social networks.

Pinterest, what’s the best homemade gifts? Facebook, when is okay to put up my Christmas decorations? Twitter, what makes the best hot chocolate? LinkedIn, when should you send out company Christmas cards? You can gain different styles of tips from different networks, and get people talking. Just be sure that this chatter is connected back to you and your company. Perhaps you can post a blog of the best tips each week? So customers compete to get their tips on the blog, and the blog attracts more people back to your site.

 

Measure your campaigns!

We started with saying plan ahead, and we’re ending with measure the campaign properly. If you would like to repeat any success, you need to know what worked well.

Ensure you regularly check which are your most popular and engaging posts. So you can update your current campaign to include more of what your customers interact with. Most social networks now include their own analytics. So you can see straight on the page what is going well.

Keep an eye out for which posts receive the most interaction, which links are most clicked, and what days and times are getting the most action.

If you use google analytics, it also means you can track how many visitors to your website came from your social media efforts.

All of this information is vital to produce another social media campaign, and also to see your return on your efforts.

Now you’re set for your social media for this season!

 

 

 

 

 

inbound marketing – 5 priorities

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5 priorities you should have when it comes to inbound marketing

5 priorities you should have when it comes to inbound marketing

You’ve probably heard a lot about inbound marketing now, (we’ve talked about it previously). How you should be working on a customer focused marketing and sales plan, opposed to something more company centric.

However you might not quite understand how to get inbound marketing to work in your company’s strategy or how to make sure you get the results you want. We’ve got five priorities you should have when it comes to inbound marketing and how to get your business noticed. Make sure your inbound marketing works.

Get found

You need to be visible to your potential customers. That means having a website for customers to find you.

That website needs to SEO friendly so it can be found by search engines. (Not sure on the lingo? Check out our SEO jargon buster). This means good keywords, good meta descriptions, using alt tags and ensure your site is fast.

Be user friendly

Once you’ve attracted all of these potential customers, you need to make sure they can get round your site. This may sound like a simple thing but with most companies never looking at their site from a customer’s point of view, it can be easily missed.

How many clicks does it take to get to your products or services? How prominent are your main services on the home page? Is it easy to find how to contact you? These are all things you probably don’t consider for your own website.

There is also another huge consideration. How easy is it, to use your website on a mobile phone or tablet, is it responsive?

Not sure how to create a user-friendly website?

Cracking content

Potential customers have found you and found where they want to be. Now you need to feed them information that will entice them in, inform them and encourage them to get in touch or purchase online.

How do I create this content? Well there is plenty of guides, including ours on creating the best, most useful content. You probably have tons of topics already that you can write about.

You want to make it as unique as possible, so change up those product descriptions where you can!

When it comes to blogs, you want a mix of evergreen content and news content. Evergreen content is the advice and tips which will always be relevant. The news will be updates in your industry, but they may change over time.

Social Media

Social media seems to have a bit of a Marmite reaction in businesses. Some businesses really love it and take advantage of every network they can, others are not convinced or just don’t have the time to do it.

The social media approach is brilliant for promoting the content you have created. It takes people straight to parts of your website that may be of interest and making you easier to find and connect with.

It’s a great way to connect with potential customers and keep in contact until the time comes that they are ready to buy. And if they have had hints, tips and advice from yourself. As well as an easy quick link of where to find your product or service, they are more likely to buy from you than from a competitor who doesn’t do social media.

Call to action

You’ve done a lot already to ensure your potential customer is happy, informed and can find you. So the last bit is to encourage them to act.

If your potential customer is interested, they may contact you automatically, others need a little more help. Using tools like landing pages means you can channel a sole ‘call to action’ to fill out the form on a page. By removing all other distractions and just leaving the form, people are more likely to complete it then go off and nose at another page.

You should now have plenty of ‘calls to action’ to follow up on.

There is an enormous amount to inbound marketing and lots more you can go into however most businesses still have a split approach with some outbound activity still going on, so time has to measured. Remember to prioritise the above and get those calls in!

If you need a little extra help with your inbound marketing, give us a call on 01543 495752 for a no obligation chat.

SEO strategies for E-commerce sites

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SEO Strategies for E-commerce sites

SEO Strategies for E-commerce sites

 

SEO is essential to modern business’s, in the on going battle to get to the top of the search results. But when it comes to an e-commerce site, many companies struggle. With having to make so much content, and so many products SEO friendly. This can mean loss of sales, which is easily preventable. 

So how can you optimise your site, to ensure you are attracting as many prospects as possible? Well in the world of rankings there are a huge amount of factors which count towards getting you to that number one spot. Here are just a few simple steps that could help you reach your SEO goal.

 

Let’s begin:

There are a few background steps you should take to begin with. These set you in a good starting position, and mean your strategy efforts have a good platform to start on.

What are your competitors doing?

It is one thing to have your page up and running. It is another to see if you are in the game, and your products will get the recognition they deserve. Spend time assessing your competitors: their products, their prices, and how usable their site is.

How easy is it to navigate your site?

Using your site as a customer, or sitting with an unbiased volunteer to use your site, is a completely different experience to using it as your companies. See how easy it really is to find your products. Does it take 2 clicks or 10? Is it a frustrating process? Look at optimising your site’s internal search function, so customers can get to what they want quicker and easier.

Good meta descriptions

Ensuring your pages have good, unique, meta descriptions is an essential before you start with on page SEO. Explaining to customers what they are about to view means that not only does Google up your ranking for providing relevant information for their users. But you also get more qualified prospects visiting your site.

 

 

Maintenance:

Once you’ve established your good platform, you now have to maintain a healthy site. By maintaining the following points, you help to maintain your results as a constant. Rather than all your efforts being focused at one point, when you have the time.

Keep your out of stock item pages up and running

Though you may not have it now, you may do in the future. Offer either an alternative option for your customers, or provide a date or when that product will be back in stock. If you have products that no longer exist, don’t just delete the page. Redirect to the later model, similar stock, or the main category page. This way you don’t lose customers to error messages when they can’t find the page.

Keyword Research

Keywords are something that have been around forever, but now need to be used smartly to achieve a result. You need to ensure your keywords are relevant to terms your customers actually use, rather than internal terminology. There are a number of tools through Google you can use to find new keywords, or see how yours are currently performing. You need to ensure you keyword is in the URL, the title and the text to ensure your SEO is optimised, but tread carefully! You don’t want to saturate your content with keywords. The text should still read well, so always make sure you have a fresh pair of eyes glance over everything to ensure you haven’t been keyword heavy.

Create unique product descriptions for every product

Make your product stand out with a unique description. If your product is being advertised by other sellers and maybe the manufacturers themselves, you have a lot of competition. By taking the time to create unique descriptions, you instantly make yourself stand out. As well as perhaps inspiring your target audience as to why they should buy your product.

Include Pictures or videos for every product

Not only does including pictures or videos or each product make it more appealing for customers. It also gives you another opportunity to improve your SEO. By creating great alt tags, you not only improve customer experience, meaning happier customers. But Google also takes this into account when they consider your ranking.

 

 

Updating:

Once you’ve got in to the rhythm of steady maintenance for your site, you may want to push yourself a little further with some updates, and see what results you can achieve.

Create seasonal categories to maximise seasonal attention

When (like now) the winter starts to roll in, most people will quickly realise they are not prepared. They will search winter coats, scarves, hats etc. You can make the most of this demand by ensuring your pages are ready with a seasonal category. One that is ready with related products for your customers to browse.

Google Ads

If you are really looking to boost your search results and to encourage sales, it may be worth considering Google ads. To get those clicks through to your product. Google Ads can be extremely complicated, so take the time to understand it before you begin. To ensure you get the best results. Keep your eyes peeled for our upcoming post on simple steps to setting up AdWords.

Encourage user reviews

As part of your updating process, you need to actively encourage user reviews. Not only do reviews help to reassure buyers, or push them further down the sales funnel, they also help with your search results. If you’re not confident on how to gain reviews, why not take a look at our blog why customer reviews are important and how to get them.

 

SEO is an ever changing landscape, so for the best results, you need to be up to date with the latest news and changes. As well as implement those changes within your own strategy. By staying up to date, you stay ahead of your competitors, and enable your customers a great experience every time they visit your site. There are a number of sites that cover SEO news, including our own blogs.

If you need a helping hand, or some guidance on how to best utilise your website’s SEO, you can take a look at our SEO services, or call us for a no obligation chat on 01543 495752.

SEO Jargon Buster – Updated

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up to date seo jargon buster

up to date seo jargon buster

We published our first SEO jargon buster in 2012 (with just 26 definitions!), and a lot has changed in SEO since then.

Our latest iteration has expanded hugely and now contains over 80 definitions.

Numbers

301 Redirect – If you switch domains, or delete a page, the URL will present users with an error message. If you carry out a 301 redirect on these pages, users will be taken to another page on your website and will not see the error message.

404 error – A message that appears with a web page no longer exists, or has moved to a different URL.

A

Above the fold – The part of a web page that users can see before scrolling down the page. It’s recommended that you place the most important information above the fold.

Algorithm – A formula search engines, programs, and computers follow to solve a problem and come up with a solution. In SEO, search engines use algorithms to decide what order to show search results in.

Alt text – Text used to describe an image. This will show up in place of an image if it cannot be loaded. Alt text is also useful for people using screen readers. And for telling search engines what the image is of.

Analytics – Data which shows how something is performing. For example, your website analytics will show how many people have visited your website, the most popular pages, your bounce rate, and so on.

Anchor text – The clickable text that is part of a hyperlink. For example: “Find out more about our marketing services”. In this case ‘marketing services’ is the anchor text.

Authority links – Links from authoritative websites, such as the BBC, .gov, the NHS, etc.

B

Backlink – A link to your website from another website.

Below the fold – This is any part of a website which users will have to scroll down to see.

Blackhat SEO – SEO techniques which do not comply with best practices. Blackhat SEO techniques are used to try and trick search engines into giving a website a higher search rankings than it deserves. Using these techniques can mean you are penalised or de-indexed from search engines.

Blog – Short for weblog, a blog is traditionally an online journal. However, it has evolved to be somewhere that businesses can share useful hints and tips about their products. Information about offers, events, and more. It has become a way for businesses to connect and engage with their audience.

Bounce rate – The percentage of people who visit your website and leave before visiting another page.

C

Canonical URL – If there are multiple URLs that show the same piece of content. A canonical URL is used to tell search engines which one is the original and which one should be counted.

CAPTCHA – Completed Automated Public Turing test to tell Computer and Humans Apart – A ‘test’ used to figure out whether the user is a computer or human. You will often see these when submitting forms. The test usually involves typing letters and numbers into a box.

Cloaking – A technique used to show search engines and users different content. This is usually done to try and improve a page’s search ranking.

CMS – Content Management System – A system, such as WordPress or Concrete5, that allows you manage and update a website.

Content scraping – Copying content and posting it on another website without permission.

Conversion – When a user completes a ‘goal’. This can be a purchase, downloading an ebook, filling in a form.

Conversion rate – The percentage of people who visited your website and completed a ‘goal’. For example, the percentage of people who visit your website and then purchase. Or maybe the percentage of people who visit a landing page and download your ebook.

Cookie – In this case, we’re not talking about the delicious things you eat. Cookies are used to identify users and improve their user experience. For example remember your log in details.

Crawl – When search engine bots visit your website and follow links to other pages on your site. Even out to other websites, this is called crawling.

C Abbreviations

CPC – Cost Per Click – In Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising, your CPC is how much it will cost you every time someone clicks on the advert.

CPM – Cost Per Thousand – This is the cost per thousand impressions.

CSS – Cascading Style Sheets – This allows web designers to create ‘style sheets’, which give them more control over how a page, and the elements that make it up, will look.

 

D

Deep link – This is a link to a page on a website that isn’t a homepage. For example, linking to a specific blog post would be considered a deep link.

Directory – A website listing businesses, containing information about their name, what they do, their contact details, their website, opening hours, and more.

Dofollow – A dofollow link is a link that you are telling search engines to ‘count’, which will pass on some SEO benefit to another website.

Domain name – A domain name is made up of the name of a website followed by a generic top-level domain, such as .co.uk, .uk, .org, etc.

Domain authority – This is a 100-point scale developed by Moz, that predicts how well a website is likely to rank in search results. It’s a measure of the ‘strength’ of a website.

Duplicate content – Copy which appears exactly the same in multiple places, either on the same website, or different websites. An example of duplicate content is several retailers who are all using the manufacturers description for a product. Duplicate content can result in SEO penalties.

E

Ecommerce – Buying or selling products or services electronically.

External link – A link out to another website.

G

Grey hat SEO – SEO techniques which bend best practice rules, rather than completely breaking them.

H

Hits – A request for something on a web page to load, such as the page itself, or an image. Hits are not a good indication of how much traffic your website has had as each image count as a ‘hit’. If you have 10 images on a page and the page was loaded twice, you’d see 20 hits.

HTML – HyperText Markup Language – This is the language used to tell browsers how a website should look and how to display it.

I

Impressions – The number of people who have seen something. For example, if 100 people see a search result, or an advert, it will have had 100 impressions.

Index – These are the databases search engines refer to. It will contain information about websites that have been crawled. It is possible to be removed from the database (de-indexed), which means your website will not show up in search results.

K

Keyword density – The percentage of times a key word, or key phrase, has been used on a web page. It’s important to note that there is no ideal keyword density, so don’t feel that ramming copy full of keywords will help your search rankings.

Keyword research – When you carry out research to see what kind of words and phrases your audience use to find your products and services.

Keyword stuffing – When words or phrases are stuffed into copy as much as possible, which often makes the copy hard to follow and understand, in an attempt to improve search rankings.

Keywords / key phrases – The words and phrases your audience use to find your products and services, and the words you want to perform well for in search rankings.

L

Link bait – Content that is created in an attempt to generate links back to the website / piece of content.

Link building – Techniques used to build links back to your website. This includes creating helpful content that people want to share.

Link farm – A group of websites that all link to each other with the intention of boosting search rankings by creating links. This is not a recommended SEO practice.

Link juice – A colloquial term used when talking about SEO benefits gained from / given by a link.

Linking C-blocks – This refers to IP addresses, and is used by search engines to determine whether websites linking to each other might be related. If websites on the same server, with the same c-blocks, are linking to each other, it’s a signal that the links might not be natural and might be owned by the same person.

Local SEO – When you specifically target higher search rankings in the geographic location around where your business is / has locations.

Long tail key words – These are key phrases made up of a few words. For example “purple non-leather dog collars” is a long tail key phrase. It’s much easier to try and rank higher for a long tail key phrase than a short tail keyphrase.

M

Meta description – Tells search engines what a page is about. This shows up as the description in search results, so it needs to be interesting and engaging to encourage people to click on your results.

Meta keywords – A meta tag that allows you to list keywords used on the page, and tells search engines what a page is about. Due to the abuse this feature received, meta keywords hold very little SEO value now.

Meta title – This is the title of a page that shows up in search results.

Mobilegeddon – A colloquial term to describe Google’s algorithm update in April 2015 that means websites with mobile-friendly websites may perform better in mobile search results, and those without a mobile-friendly website may have their rankings decreased in mobile search results.

N

Nofollow link – A link to another website which you are telling search engines not to count as providing any SEO benefit.

Non-organic search results – These are paid advertisements that appear on search result pages.

O

Off page SEO – Techniques used to improve a website’s search rankings that are not carried out on the website itself. For example, link building.

On page SEO – Techniques used to improve a website’s search ranking that are carried out on the website, such as making sure your website is responsive.

Organic search – These are search results that are not paid for.

P

Pagerank (PR) – This is what Google use to rank websites in their search results.

Pageview – The number of views a page has had. For example, if one person visits your page twice, it has had two pageviews.

Panda (Google Panda) – A Google algorithm that was first released in February 2011, and focused on improving rankings of websites providing high quality content, and lowering the rankings of poor websites that provided low quality content.

Penguin (Google Penguin) – A Google algorithm launched in April 2012 that aimed to catch and lower the search rankings of websites using black hat SEO techniques, such as buying links or keyword stuffing.

PPC – Pay-Per-Click – An advertising model where the advertiser pays for each click on the advert.

R

Ranking – Where you are showing up in search results.

Reciprocal links – When two websites agree to link to each other. Done correctly, the websites will link to each other because website A provides useful content for readers of website B, and vice versa. Excessive reciprocal links, especially when there is no relevance or need to, could harm your search rankings.

Rich snippets – Extra information that appears in a search result, such as star ratings, price range, and time required to complete a recipe, and so on.

ROI – Return On Investment – The financial return, or benefit, you will get as a result of an investment.

RSS feed – Really Simple Syndication – If an RSS feed is set up on your blog, new posts will be sent to anyone who subscribes to your RSS feed. You can choose the send the entire post, or just a snippet of it.

S

Schema markup – Code you can put in your website to give search engines more information about you, and give users better and more relevant results. For example, if you’re a venue, or a performer, you could share dates. You can share things like price, star ratings, how long a recipe will take.

SEM – Search Engine Marketing – A marketing method which focuses on improving search rankings, by doing things such as ensuring a website is SEO-friendly, and creating SEO-friendly content.

SEO – Search Engine Optimisation – Techniques used to improve a website’s visibility in search results.

SERP – Search Engine Results Page – The pages that show a list of search results.

Short tail keywords – (Also known as broad match) These are key phrases which contain around one or two words. For example “Black shoes”. Due to the small number of words, these are often very broad search terms.

Site map – A list of pages on a website that people and search engine crawlers can get to. An XML sitemap makes it easier for search engine bots to crawl your website, while a HTML sitemap can make it easier for users to find their way around your website.

Referrer spam – When spam bots ‘visit’ your website, skewing your analytics data.

Spiders – A program used by search engines to crawl web pages.

U

Unique visitor – The number of individuals who have visited your website.

URL – Uniform Resource Location – The address of a web page.

W

White hat SEO – SEO practices which comply with search engine guidelines. Do not attempt to trick them into giving a website a higher search ranking than it deserves.

 

Need help getting to grips with your SEO? Contact us today on 01543 495752 for a no obligation chat. Or you can read more about SEO in our blogs. 

A dog’s view on SEO

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a dogs view on seo

a dogs view on seo

I’ve heard the humans talk about the importance of SEO, but I’m not sure if we’re barking up the same tree! My whole life is SEO, sleeping, entertaining and ogling, but the humans seem to think it’s something to do with a search engine?

George the business dog

All I know is I have a really hard life. For example, every day the humans drag me to work, they make me walk all that way! That’s like at least 100 metres! As you can see I am a very busy business dog, and I do not need to be wasting valuable energy on something like walking!

 

Sleeping 1

 

So how does a successful dog like me run my day? Well the first thing I have to do, once I’ve said hello to everyone of course, is to have a little sleep. The humans say I snore, but really I’m just multitasking and protecting the humans from nasties by making my presence known.

 

George playing with bin

 

Then its play time, I love to be social and have to get everyone to give me a fuss and choose a toy. Sometimes its snake, sometimes it mouse, sometimes it’s even the bin. I thought it was brilliant I could even make the chore of emptying the bin fun! But instead the humans laugh at me and talk in weird baby voices, so at least I know I’m entertaining them.

 

George ogling cake

 

Then I have to ogle at the human’s food that they are mean enough to keep away from me. One day, I will ogle enough that they will give me their lunch! It hasn’t worked so far, mum never cuts me a slice of cake! But sometimes Laurie gives me a bit of ham … he might be coming round …

 

George the marketing dog giving tips

 

Then once I have given David my professional opinion on business things, I usually have another snooze. Funnily enough when I wake up to go home, he doesn’t seem to have used any of my ideas of an extra paw print here and there, adding my toys to exhibition stands or making the brochures sausage scented. So I will try again tomorrow …

I’d woof love to hear if you agree with my idea of SEO (Sleeping, entertaining and ogling) but I suppose if you want to see what the humans say about SEO, you could click here.