Why Is It Worth My While Building An Email List?

Email marketing is still one of the most effective forms of digital marketing available, and can allow you to reach more of your target audience than any other marketing platform. Roughly 22% of emails get blocked or lost in spam filters, but that still leaves an average of 78% messages delivered.Not only does it have a high conversion rate, but it's great for increasing repeat traffic to your site. Emailing offers, new products, or teasers of your latest blog posts, gives people a reason to come back to your website. Sometimes, just popping up in somebody's inbox at the right time in their buying cycle can be enough for them to make the decision to buy from you.When you use other online marketing channels, you rely on their service rules. Facebook can decide to decrease your reach to encourage businesses to pay for ads. And Google's algorithm changes so fast you might be reducing your page rankings without even knowing. But with a large network of emails, you can still reach out to people and promote your business.But it's also important to play by the rules. Most bulk mail sending platforms frown on the use of purchased email marketing lists, and you are likely to get penalised if your mailshots result in large amounts of bounces, unsubscribes or spam complaints. So it's important to build your own targeted lists of people that have interacted with your business in some way, as they will be familiar with your brand and less likely to view your emails as unsolicited.There are lots of ways to build a list, from harvesting the email addresses of existing contacts in your inbox, to collecting leads through the use of 'content upgrades' on your website. You can then set up 'drip' campaigns to feed new subscribers with an automated series of useful emails that will help establish you as an expert in your field – and then once they're ready to purchase, you'll hopefully be at the front of their minds.

Why Should My Business Be Blogging?

Blogging is a great way of generating new leads.

A blog – short for 'web log' – is a collection of time-stamped content, presented in chronological order as a series of 'posts'.Every post is a search-indexable page on your site – filled with keywords relevant to your specialist subject – so consistent blogging is a great way of showing Google that your site is regularly updated, therefore boosting your rankings. Also ensure your post content is optimised with the appropriate meta tags and schema markup for maximum search engine visibility.As a blog post might be the entrance page that a new visitor lands upon, it's important to include a relevant call-to-action here. If your website has a specific goal, make sure your blog posts are also optimised for this conversion.An up-to-date blog will also keep visitors coming back, as it gives them a reason to return regularly. And a regular visitor is much more likely to convert into a paying customer. Blogging is also a non-intrusive way to demonstrate your knowledge and present yourself as an authority in your industry, which will help position you highly in somebody's mind when they're choosing to buy the products or services you offer.You should also publish blog content on other platforms such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Medium. Blogging is a great way of generating shareable, engaging content for social media, which in-turn diverts people to your website. And for popular blog posts, it can also be beneficial to market them through Facebook and Google pay-per-click advertising, as this will attract new visitors in an informal, non-salesy way. And make sure you always use a Facebook tracking pixel on blog posts, as this will allow you to build up a targeted list of Facebook accounts to further market to.The benefits of having an up-to-date blog are huge, so why not start blogging and see how it really can help bring you more traffic.

What’s the best way to brief you?

We always recommend prospective clients invest time in a well written brief, even if it’s just in relation to initial strategy or discovery work.

It means that when you do reach out to potential agencies, you’re able to brief them in the same way and ensure you get proposal responses that you can compare easily because they are based on the same consistent brief.

The better your brief, the better the proposals and responses you can expect to receive back from agencies.

If you’re not sure where to start on a website project brief you can find our brief template download here which should help to guide you on how to structure a good website design and development brief.

Website Conversion Analysis

What Are Web Analytics and Why Are They Important?

Web analytics allow you to measure and review how your visitors arrive on your site, and what they do once there.

These metrics allow you to gain valuable insights into who your visitors are and how well your website is performing, helping you determine how best to maximise traffic and conversions.Knowing where your visitors are coming from is essential to know which of your marketing channels are working well, as well as identify potential new opportunities. And knowing how they interact with your site helps you optimise the user experience to keep them engaged for longer and turn them into customers.Analytics can help you track the performance of your social media and PPC advertising campaigns, or see what percentage of your users are browsing on mobile devices or using a specific browser.It might sound complex, but web analytics are easy to implement and use. We're fans of both Google Analytics and Hotjar, as they are simple to understand, and together provide a goldmine of information on visitor behaviour.Without analytics, you won't have any idea why your website isn't performing, nor will you have anything to benchmark any improvements against. If your site doesn't have any analytics set up, make this your first priority and start collecting that valuable data.

What Is a Unique Value Proposition and Why Is It Important?

A Unique Value Proposition, or UVP, is a simple statement that succinctly describes what you offer, how it will benefit your customer, and ideally what makes it better than your competitors' offerings. You want to be as specific as possible here without divulging into unnecessary detail.A great example is "Uber is the smartest way to get around. One tap and a car comes directly to you. Your driver knows exactly where to go. And payment is completely cashless." Without explicitly saying so, Uber highlights everything that is bad about traditional taxi services and points out how its service is superior.With so much choice available, especially online, a UVP is important to help encourage people to buy from you instead of from someone else. And with ever-decreasing attention spans, you have around ten seconds to get across to your website visitors what you are offering and why they should buy it from you. If they don't feel their needs have been addressed, they will be gone in a click, searching elsewhere instead.Don't confuse a UVP with a strapline. A strapline is a brief sentence to capture your company and its values. Although similar, a UVP is usually a bit more specific to describe what makes your business different.Why not take some time to sit down with a pen and paper, and write down the reasons why you believe that your company is the best choice for your customers. This should help you come up with an engaging UVP that totally sums up your business.

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Why Is Social Media Important To My Business?

Maintaining a proactive presence on social media can have a multitude of benefits for your business.

You can obtain customer insights and deliver better customer service, whilst increasing the reputation and trust in your brand. It's also great for promoting content and driving web traffic to your site. It can be quite daunting to begin with, but you can start up and maintain a few accounts fairly easily.Research and follow Twitter/Facebook business users that could be beneficial to your business, and build a network of interesting and useful connections to engage with. Social media should be about connecting with real people. At most, 10% of tweets should be automated – the rest should be manual. Automating everything doesn't build relationships, and is the equivalent of handing out a hundred business cards in five minutes.You should be posting out interesting content that represents the real life personality of your company. You should aim to post on Twitter two or three times a day, and on Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram most days. Don't worry if you miss a post in your schedule – it's much more important to post something meaningful rather than any old rubbish just to get a tweet or post out.It's also good to reply to other people's tweets or comment on their posts, as this engagement demonstrates that you value their output, and it can often lead to some valuable conversations.If your business isn't active on social media, make it a priority and you should start to see the benefits.

Why is Site Speed Important?

Site speed, or more accurately, page load time, is a critical measure that can influence not only visitor behaviour, but also your search engine rankings.

Website pages with long load times tend to have a higher bounce rate (the percentage of visitors who leave a site without visiting another page), and longer load times have also been shown to negatively affect conversions.Psychologically, high latency and load times between a visitor performing an action and getting a response triggers a brief period of anxiety, during which time the user is momentarily left in the dark — powerless and confused — caught between seams.This anxiety can quickly build up to create a poor user experience that will drive the user away from your website and leave them with a negative memory of your brand.Google also state that site speed is one of the signals they use in their search ranking algorithm, meaning that if your site is consistently slow to load you will be penalised in the search results.According to a recent study from Microsoft, people now generally lose concentration after eight seconds, highlighting the affects of an increasingly digitalised lifestyle on the brain.With human attention spans supposedly now shorter than those of goldfish, you need to be doing all you can to keep your visitors engaged and on your site – else risk losing them to a competitor.

Why Should I Optimise Email Newsletters for Mobile?

Unless you’ve been in hiding for the last 5 years, you should be well aware by now just how popular mobile usage is for internet browsing. In 2014, it was reported that over 36% of mobile subscribers use iPhones or iPads to read email, and 34% of subscribers only use mobile devices to read emails. That's over a third of your audience!Despite these stats, under 12% of email marketing campaigns use a responsive design optimised for mobile devices, so sending out mobile-friendly emails will set you apart from the crowd. Your email will not only be easier to read and digest, but it will make more of a memorable impression and give you a competitive edge against your competition that's easy to achieve.When designing an email campaign, remember to keep things simple, as email code is not as well-supported as it is for websites. How an HTML email will display varies radically from one inbox to another, and images are often blocked. There's no point sending out an email that initially shows up with nothing, so don't overcomplicate your message with fancy unsupported effects and designs.With so many marketing emails coming in to your customer's inbox, it's important to rise above the noise. Think carefully about subject lines, and consider personalisation to make the recipient feel targeted. Having an optimised email campaign will make your brand more memorable and a positive email experience will leave them more willing to visit your site and hear from you in the future.

Why is a Mobile-Friendly Website Absolutely Essential?

Mobile devices have transformed the way consumers explore products and research their most important purchases.

Research conducted by Nielsen, xAd, and Telmetrics suggests that nearly half of the users they surveyed rely exclusively on their mobile devices for pre-purchase research, and that 30% of smartphone users (and 25% of tablet users) have immediate needs and purchase within an hour.However, Google research has shown that 61% of users are unlikely to return to a mobile site they had trouble accessing – with 40% visit a competitor's site instead.Not only can a mobile-unfriendly site negatively affect your visitors' experience, it can also harm your search engine rankings. Earlier this year, Google rolled out an update to their algorithm that gives mobile-friendly sites a ranking boost in the search results pages.Having a mobile-friendly website is no longer just an option – it's a requirement. If your site has not been designed with mobile browsing in mind, this should without a doubt be the first thing you address in your marketing strategy.

How Important Is Website Security?

Just like insurance, the importance of website security is something that's often undervalued until the worst happens.

No doubt you've heard increasing reports recently of high-profile sites getting hacked and customer data being stolen – yet it still seems to be considered as one of those 'it won't happen to me' type scenarios.Granted, you might not feel like anyone would have a reason to hack your site. Maybe your site doesn't store any customer data, so you don't feel it would be a target. But the majority of sites that are attacked on a daily basis are done simply to demonstrate the hackers ability or to promote a political message. They often won't target a specific site, preferring instead to just scan the 'net for insecure hosting servers – and then break in once they find one.Imagine if one of your customers arrived on your site one day to be greeted by a blank screen with a garbled message about the site having been 'H4x0r3D by v3N0M'. It probably wouldn't leave them with the warm fuzzy feeling that you'd like them to have whenever they interact with your brand.Believe it or not, we've seen this happen on more than one occasion over the years – usually to sites hosted on low-budget shared hosting servers – so it pays dividends to use a good quality managed hosting service that takes security seriously.Another method that hackers often use to gain access to websites is through security 'holes' in un-patched website code. Always make sure that your CMS and plugins are kept up-to-date with the latest versions in order to minimise this risk.Improving site security might not seem like a marketing tip – but the consequences of not doing it could severely damage your brand, not to mention leaving your site offline unable to earn you any business.

How soon can you start a project?

We can typically start a project within 2-6 weeks of confirmation, but we usually have multiple proposals pending and our schedules can change at short notice, so the more notice we have, the sooner we can secure a start date.

Once we submit a proposal, we always endeavour to keep prospective clients up to date on available start dates and if our schedules change.

Once a project is confirmed, we need to:

  • Put in place a signed Master Service Agreement
  • Draft the initial Statement of Work (SoW)
  • Have the Statement of Work reviewed and signed
  • Issue the deposit invoice for the project
  • Run an internal team project briefing
  • Carry out some pre-kickoff planning and research
  • Prepare a client kick off session

There might also be some steps we need our clients to take before we can formally start a project, such as filling out some of our onboarding documents, briefing templates or questionnaires.

All of the steps above can easily take a couple of weeks, but often more if you have legal, procurement or C-Suite sponsors that need to review documents or provide sign off, so it’s worth building this into your timelines.

How do you deliver proposals and pitches?

We only ever deliver our proposals in presentation deck form, in person or over a video call screen share, and we request as many project stakeholders as possible are in attendance.

After delivering the presentation, we will then share a PDF copy of the proposal deck and/or a recording of the video call if requested.

We never blind submit written proposals by email without any interaction, as we feel passionately that paragraphs of text on sheets of A4 are a terrible medium for communicating exciting digital projects!

Being able to talk through our proposals with our clients and showcase relevant work and ideas is much easier, effective, interactive, dynamic and engaging for both client and agency. It also gives our clients a chance to ‘meet us’ and get a feel for working with us! We know that great projects are delivered off the back of great working relationships.


Good SEO rankings, but poor sales?

So you engaged an SEO company to help boost your rankings? They delivered on their promise, your monthly reports are positive, visibility has improved and your traffic has been steadily on the rise. However there’s one glaring issue. You’re not getting the enquiries you’d hoped for!The role of a good SEO company is twofold. To improve the online visibility of a business, and to increase the amount of qualified traffic to a company’s website. Increasing traffic is all well and good, but only when it coverts into new opportunities and sales.If you are finding that you're not getting the level of enquiries and new business that you anticipated, then it’s likely there are flaws in other areas of your online marketing that are hampering your chances of visitor conversion.So what’s the next logical step to help solve the issue, and bring more leads into the business? The answer is often simple and starts with a thorough investigation into why things aren't happening as fast as you want, and uncovering the hidden challenges that are keeping your visitors from becoming customers.[gravityform id="4" title="true" description="true"]

How Do I Get My Website In Front of More Potential Customers?

"If you build it, they will come" is still a big assumption amongst new site owners, but with over 1 billion sites on the web, you need to put in some serious effort to get your site noticed. The more places your website is featured around the web, the more exposure to potential customers you will receive.Around 80% of people will use a search engine to find local businesses. More importantly, over 95% of those people will only browse the sites featured on the first page of results – so good search engine optimisation is essential for getting your website in front of more prospects.List your business on the major business directories to help grow your online footprint. We recommend starting with Google's 'My Business' – it's easy to set up and will communicate with Google Search much more effectively than other directories.Researching where your direct competitors and other similar businesses have listed themselves using a tool such as Whitespark, will help you quickly identify high-authority sites that are worth you getting listed on. These listings will create valuable links back to your website, which over time should give your rankings a boost.As well as creating off-site backlinks from around the web, you should also focus on 'on-site' and 'on-page' optimisation – check out our marketing tips to get you started.

What Are Featured Snippets and How Could They Help My Business?

Have you ever asked Google a 'question' and noticed that the first listing in the search results is in a special format, containing the complete answer to your question (hopefully), along with a link to the site that answered it?Well, this is what Google calls a 'featured snippet', and the good news is that anyone can have a chance of providing the answer to the searcher's question – putting their site at that coveted top spot in the listings.If your site contains any 'FAQ' type content, then you would be well-advised to make sure that it is 'marked-up' with some special code tags so that Google can get a better idea of what the content is about – and with a bit of luck, feature it in its search results pages.For more information on how to implement this on your site, as well as seeing a great example of it in action, do a Google search for 'what is schema markup?'.

How Do I Encourage More People To Visit My Premises?

If you have a bricks-and-mortar business that you are trying to promote via your website, first-and-foremost make sure that all your contact details are up-to-date and easy to find, as any ambiguous information will leave customers anxious about visiting you.Provide as much detail as possible to help direct customers, such as your opening hours, location maps, and even a link to Google directions preset with their current location. Provide plenty of photos of your premises, and consider a 360-degree virtual tour to help people feel familiar with where they'll be visiting.Include a 'Meet the Team' page on your website – seeing happy images of team members will give customers a familiar face to greet and make contact with. Videos that show happy employees in a positive work environment will also encourage people to pop-in.Collection-only offers and in-store specials are great for encouraging shop visits. You could even hold an in-store event or sale to entice crowds of people to come in. Keep your customers updated via email and social media of any upcoming on-site offers, so that they can plan their visit accordingly.Create a Google 'My Business' page to help people find you in search results and maps. This will also help them physically locate you more easily. People may also notice your store front when looking around at other local businesses, getting your site unintentionally seen by potential visitors.

Do you work with existing ‘off the shelf’ WordPress themes or templates?

No, we only ever deliver bespoke projects that are fully designed and developed from scratch.

Our enterprise clients work with us because they are serious about optimisation on all fronts. This includes speed, security, code quality, scalability, SEO, accessibility etc.

The only way of achieving these things to the level our clients require is through custom WordPress design and development, so all of our websites and WordPress themes are handcrafted from scratch for every client.

Do you take on white label projects?

No. We’re fortunate that lots of agencies ask us to deliver projects behind the scenes for their clients, but we don’t take on this kind of work. We’re happy to work alongside agencies as a partner, but will always require a direct relationship with the end client.

Do you take on ‘development only’ projects?

No. Whilst we get invited to lots of ‘build only’ or ‘development only’ projects, we don’t tend to take these on.

We’re driven by making an impact, and we can only achieve this by shaping things from the beginning. This means only taking on end-to-end strategy, UX, design and development projects.

For existing clients that we delivered a website for originally, we do of course carry out ‘development only’ change requests and enhancements.

Do you take on ad hoc change requests or small projects to existing sites that you didn’t build?

No, if your site has been delivered by another agency, we generally are not able to help on an ad hoc basis and usually only take on full strategy, design and build projects.

However, we do sometimes take over retained development, support and maintenance for client’s sites built by another agency. We only take on this kind of work as part of an ongoing monthly retainer that includes retained time, support & maintenance.

If we built your site originally, we will of course be able to assist with ad hoc projects, change requests, new features or enhancements via our support or project teams.

Do Reviews Matter?

If you're looking to increase leads, a crucial first step would be to start earning more online customer reviews for your business.

The majority of people begin their buying journey with a Google search. They scan the results looking for a reason to click. As simple as it sounds, if your company has more reviews than your competitors, there's a good chance you'll be the one that they are drawn to first.Reviews are about more than just commanding attention in search. Good customer reviews boost confidence in your brand. When a real person backs up the claims you've made on your website about your amazing service, it has a much bigger impact then when you say it yourself.By gaining a steady flow of online customer reviews about your business, you'll be increasing Google's confidence in your brand too, which will naturally lead to a positive increase to your rankings.So online reviews really do matter, and play a critical role in a buyer's decision-making process and willingness to buy.Start earning reviews by asking a handful of your customers to give your business some feedback via your Google 'My Business' page, Facebook page, or Yelp page – and further increase your chances of turning those browsers into buyers.

What Is Conversion Rate Optimisation and How Will It Help Increase Business?

No matter how well-designed you think your site is, the chances are that there is room for improvement.

If you're spending money on paid advertising or SEO to generate traffic to your site, then you want to be squeezing the most value out of it.Conversion Rate Optimisation (CRO) is the process of refining your sites user experience with the primary objective of increasing the percentage of visitors that complete a particular goal.Depending on the nature of your site, these goals might include getting your visitor to complete a checkout process, subscribe to your newsletter, download a brochure, fill in an enquiry form – or even pick up the phone (yes, calls can be tracked too).Ultimately, the aim of CRO is to convert more visitors into customers – so by making the conversion process easier (or more appealing) for your visitors, more of them will convert and you'll get a better return on your investment.In order to make informed decisions as to what changes could be made to improve your conversion rates, it's essential to gather real-world data so that you can understand who your visitors are and how they are interacting with your site. This will help you identify potential problem areas, or missed opportunities.This data can be obtained through a variety of methods such as web analytics (which pages are popular or unpopular), heat mapping (identifying which areas of your site get the most clicks), user testing (asking test subjects to perform a particular task and give you feedback on how easy they found it), and exit surveys (i.e. asking your visitors why they are about to leave your site).Armed with this information, you can make informed decisions as to what you should try changing in order to increase your conversion rates, and generate more business from your website.

What Are Content Upgrades and How Do They Generate Leads?

A content upgrade is piece of content featured on a website that is offered in exchange for a reader's email address.

It should provide additional value to the free content that precedes it on a corresponding blog article (hence the term 'upgrade'), offered in the form of an ebook, slideshow, video training series or exclusive access.Studies show that this type of supplementary content creates an unresolved open loop in the user's mind, that can only be closed by acquiring the additional resource on offer. Much the same as when a film ends on a cliff-hanger, a content upgrade spark curiosity and appeals to our need for a conclusion.Aside from this, information that builds upon a related blog post and improves or enhances it's quality helps towards building a stronger list of subscribers as it provides valuable insight into the true needs of the people interested in your offering.

Should I Consider Using Video To Market My Business?

Absolutely. If content was king in 2016, video is likely to take the crown in 2017.

YouTube reports that mobile video consumption rises 100% every year, with a third of all online activity being spent watching video.You've no doubt noticed how quickly video has infiltrated Facebook, with seemingly every other item in your newsfeed being a video doing it's very best to steal your attention.Good quality video no longer has to cost the earth – most of us carry around a high-definition video camera in our pockets that is more than capable of producing short bite-sized pieces of content that can be quickly and easily shared across your social media channels and in your email marketing.In fact, video in email can lead to a 200-300% increase in click-through rates, and including video on a landing page can increase conversion by 80%.Why not think about how you could utilise video in your online marketing? Maybe a demo of your latest product, or a walk-through of your showroom? Or maybe just something fun to show the personal side of your company.

How Can I Use Facebook Advertising to Increase Potential Leads?

As of the third quarter of 2016, Facebook had 1.79 billion monthly active users.

That's a possible outreach of 1.79 billion for your business! Not that you'd need to target them all of course. Facebook advertising is great for reaching out to new customers, and it's most-powerful feature is the extensive analytical data it provides to help target the right audience for your business.Whenever running a Facebook ad campaign (and even when not), it is imperative to install a Facebook tracking pixel on your website. This is a small snippet of code that allows Facebook to collect information about how users interact with your site. If you drive traffic to a particular post on your website, you can track the specific audience that visited that page, and then re-market to them based on what they've clicked on before.You can also use the tracking pixel data to build up a 'lookalike' audience of Facebook users that have similar demographics and interests to those that have visited your site. And if a Facebook user interacts with your advert, Facebook will dynamically target other similar users, as it's more likely that they will engage with it too.We've only scratched the surface of what you can do with Facebook advertising, so rather than just chucking an ad out into the social ether and hoping for the best, make use of Facebook analytics and start creating better-targeted campaigns.

How Can I Recruit New Employees Without Expensive Agency Fees?

There are plenty of ways to find new employees without hiring a recruitment agency.

Incentivise your current employees to find your next hire, include referral programmes, and consider low-cost Google ads. Take to social media to create a buzz around your new role, and post listings for free on the most-recognised job sites, like Indeed.No matter how well your marketing channels work to draw in potential candidates, they all lead straight back to your company's website, so having a stand-out careers section is imperative. Create a "We're hiring" button or alert bar at the top of your website that will be seen when anyone lands on your site. Your 'Careers' page should have clear information on the roles available, and make it obvious how to apply. Including social media buttons will also encourage sharing.But it's not just the careers page that needs attention. A 'Meet the Team' page can help candidates see where they would fit within your business, and your 'About' page is a great opportunity to sell company perks and culture. Always remember that if you're shouting about a job opening, you'll likely receive more traffic – so make sure your site is looking tip-top to avoid putting off that stand out candidate.

How Can a Live Chat Facility Help My Business?

Live chat is a website feature that allows a user to send messages directly to your company and enables them to have a real-time conversation with you via your website.

Visitors like this facility as it means that their enquiry is likely to be resolved in a much quicker timeframe than is usually expected through traditional email and contact forms, and doesn't require making a phone call, which is often difficult for people when browsing at work or on the train.This is particularly helpful to customers who are having issues on your website. Any confusion or questions from users will result in website abandonment unless they receive a quick answer. A live chat facility allows an instant communication option, reducing clicks away from your site and increasing potential conversions.Live chat is also a perfect opportunity to collect any feedback from customers, particularly those experiencing problems. You don’t have to bombard them with a bunch of marketing questions, but finding out their issues helps identify any existing problems on your website. Fixing these problems will reduce issues for future customers and keep them on your site.If you are able to quickly help resolve any issues or answer any questions that your visitor might have, it will create a positive shopping experience that will keep them coming back. And if they can see that you are a responsive company who genuinely cares about providing good customer service, they will be more willing to buy your product or service in the future.Multiple chats can be managed simultaneously, which is much quicker and cheaper than a customer service phone line, and can easily be shared amongst a team if you have multiple resources available. You can also set up alerts so that if anyone starts a conversation when you're not at your desk, you can be alerted on your phone. And if it's not possible for you to reply right way, an automated response can be provided to let the visitor know that you will get back to them as soon as you can.Without live chat, you customers might not be getting the support they need there-and-then, resulting in website abandonment. Consider implementing it into your site to give your conversions a boost.

How Can I Increase My Website's Visibility In Search Engine Results?

Optimising your website to appear higher, or more frequently, in search engine results pages, is known as SEO (Search Engine Optimisation). The good news is that improving your SEO can start with just a few small tweaks to your website.Try to have regularly-updated content on your site (blogs are great for this) to prompt Google and other search engines to re-index your site. Use relevant keywords in your page titles, content and link 'anchor' text, and include a dynamic sitemap that updates when your site does. This will help search engines read your site and speed up the indexing process.Search engine 'bots' will read your content, but they won’t necessarily know what it's about or the context that it's in. Using schema markup code helps them to understand what the information is, and in-turn helps them return more-informative search results to users. If you haven't already, read our tip on Featured Snippets for more information on the possible benefits of this.Optimise your images too, with appropriate alt and title tags. Search engines will use AI technology to guess what an image is of, but using alt and title tags will help them (and visually-impaired users) out. Where possible, you should also geo-locate your images so that they are associated with your Google-registered business location.There are two absolute musts for SEO. The first is making sure that your site is mobile-friendly, as Google now favours mobile friendly sites and will rank them favourably in mobile search results.The second, more-recently announced change, is Google's plan for a more-secure web. You know that reassuring green padlock symbol that displays when you're shopping online? That means that the site is protected via an SSL certificate, which makes it much harder for hackers to eavesdrop on your data transmissions. Well, the latest news from Google is that in newer versions of their Chrome browser, they plan to flag up all sites that don't have an SSL certificate, and highlight this in their search results.Keeping on top of Google's guidelines for SEO best practices will make sure you stay in good stead.

How Can I Generate More Leads Through My Facebook Business Page?

With nearly 1.8 billion active users a month, Facebook is a huge social network that's not going anywhere anytime soon.

Having a Facebook business page allows you to connect with your customers and raise brand awareness – but you need to remain proactive in order to increase your page's lead potential.Create a call-to-action button at the top of your page (just under the cover photo). You created your website with a specific goal in mind, and this should be linked to in the CTA button. Facebook provides plenty of options from ‘Call Us’ to ‘Sign Up’, ‘Send Message’ to ‘Shop Now’. You should include clear contact options anyway, as Facebook users might not visit your website afterwards.Have a post pinned to the top of your Facebook page at all times – ideally one that relates to your website’s specific goal and call-to-action button. Maybe this links to a landing page or newsletter sign-up form. This is the first post users see on your page and therefore more likely to get clicked.Remain as active as possible on social media. Inactive accounts will put people off as they have no reason to return. Post about your work, products you sell, and customers you've helped, to show what your company can provide. Post out interesting content that represents the real-life personality of your company. Humanising your brand will build trust and make you much more approachable.Also, use Facebook to maintain a customer service hub. People often look to social media for help and support first, and if they can see you are a responsive brand who genuinely cares about providing customer service, they'll be more willing to buy your product or service.Do you have a Facebook Business page? If so, is it up-to-scratch and pulling in leads? Why not review this and watch your business network grow.

How Can I Generate More Enquiries Without More Traffic?

Did you know that around 75% of your website visitors will visit once and never come back?

That's a lot of missed conversion opportunities! The first step in keeping them coming back is to identify why they left in the first place. Is your website taking too long to load? Does it have too many adverts or pop-ups? Is your navigation clunky and difficult to use? Any sort of bad experience is enough to leave people running for the door.When someone reaches your site, is it clear what they should be doing? It's important your website has a strong call-to-action. This is often a stand-out message accompanied by a button that prompts the visitor to do something. Without a strong CTA, visitors might get confused with your website, leading them to click off. And if they were confused on their first visit, why would they return?If you haven't already, implement customer feedback into your website and marketing channels. Reviews and testimonials play a critical role in a buyer's decision-making process and willingness to buy. Building trust is vital in a digital landscape, and good customer reviews help boost confidence in your brand.Finally, make sure you regularly update your website and social media pages. Visitors are unlikely to be inclined to return if there's nothing new to see or do. Make regular contact too – personalised email marketing and targeted ads are likely to put you in the forefront of people's mind when looking for your product or service.

What Is a Call-to-Action and How Will It Benefit My Business?

You created your website with a specific goal in mind. Maybe to generate more enquiries, increase sales or entice more visitors to your shop.

Whatever your ambition, if your site lacks a strong call-to-action, you'll have little luck in achieving that goal.In web terms, a call-to-action, or CTA, is most often a stand-out message accompanied by a button that prompts the visitor to do something depending on their place in the decision making process.Here's a few examples. A transitional CTA for visitors that are undecided might be 'Join Our Newsletter' or 'Download Our Guide'. A direct CTA, for committed customers, would be 'Sign Up Now', 'Buy Now' or 'Get Started'.If your CTA is cluttered within a page, it will only lead to confusion. Provide space and clarity.With so many messages fighting for attention, don't make your customers work hard – clearly direct them and get better results.