Ignoring Important Engagement Opportunities with Your Social Media Audience
You should never underestimate the power of communicating with whomever chooses to engage with your businesses’ social media pages. Whether it’s in the form of comments, direct messages, or overall page interactions – you should make it a priority to respond in as much detail as you possibly can/have time for.
What does this engagement offer your business? It’s a time-consuming task that doesn’t have the direct monetary value, isn’t it?
Have you ever had a business’s social media page respond in a personal, polite and, most importantly, human way? I can guarantee that your outlook on that business improved greatly, as they took the time to respond to YOUR query, to solve YOUR issue.
Now think… if you had 10 customers who engage with you via social media, the value gained through properly responding to each customer in a positive way is unmeasurable. Through 10 short but helpful messages, taking a maximum of 5 minutes each, you could secure hundreds or thousands of £s in goodwill and potential future sales.
Alternatively, if your business is publicly seen to be helpful, it can have a positive effect on whoever has viewed your interactions. They may choose YOUR business over the competition.
Failing to Optimise Your Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
Search Engine Optimisation is one of the most important tools to digital success. Simply put – it’s the process that dictates where you rank on Google. Will you appear on the top of the Google page 1 for your industry, or will your website be lost on page 73? This all depends on the level of your website’s Search Engine Optimisation (SEO).
Ignoring SEO can be a massive mistake made by any business owner. According to the Advanced Web Ranking’s click-through rate study, being number 1 on Google brings 37.9% of all clicks from a searched-for phrase. This is followed by only 18.47% of clicks for the 2nd position of the first page; with a low 1.86% of clicks going to the top result of the 2nd page, you can clearly see the importance of putting as much time & money into optimising your website’s SEO.
How would you go about doing this? Here’s some suggestions:
Share Creative, Relevant & Engaging Content
Creating content, such as informative articles/videos within your chosen field, is a great way to boost your website’s ranking on search engines. If a user is spending time on your page and reading/engaging with your content, this will tell Google your website is good enough to rank higher in the search results.
Your content should be designed around maintaining the attention of your audience and giving them something to share with their peers, or on social media. Linking a webpage is great for SEO optimisation – something we’ll look at next.
Giving Your Audience Something to Link About
Every time your website is linked, whether it be from an individual or a website, your link will become more valuable to Search Engines. Through linking a website, it shows Google that your website has value. However, this was previously used in the deceptive way. Businesses were purchasing fake links to their website and artificially boosting their SEO value. This then led to Google changing their algorithm, causing different links to have different levels of effectiveness in boosting your Google rank.
Simply put, not just any website can link your page and it have a positive effect on your brand. Your website must be linked by credible website with actual intent on sharing your content. Otherwise, your webpage can be blacklisted and cut-off from Google’s ranking altogether. Test
Choosing the Perfect Keywords
A keyword is what you can tell whichever SEO plugin you’re using ‘I want my webpage to be considered when someone searches ____’. Using Xtensive as an example, we’re a web design company in Paisley. We could use ‘Web Designers Paisley’, ‘Renfrewshire Web Designers’ or ‘Web Designers in Scotland’ all are applicable to our company, service and location.
As a new website, you may not want to choose very competitive keywords, as you will most certainly be beaten by the bigger players within your market. As a new website, it’s advised to do research on keywords with little competition
There is much more that goes into fully optimising your SEO for high ranks within Google. However, we hope the above gives you some insight into what creates a well-designed SEO machine.
Neglecting Google Ads & Failing to Maintain Them
When SEO can enable your website to rank high in Google organically, Google Ads allows your business to appear at the top of Google as an advertisement by paying for that privilege. This can be great for a small business to be seen by the masses searching for certain phrases. We highly recommend considering Google Ads as a way to market your business. They are a great way for businesses new to the digital world to increase their visibility, brand awareness, and hopefully, sales.
Google ads grant you access to millions of users on the biggest platform found on the website. Whether you wish to appear on the top of searches, small ads on partnered websites, or promoting business via video on Youtube, this can all be achieved through Google ads. The powerful platform allows you to dictate what type of person views your ad, at what time of the day.
However, it’s not as simple as setting up an ad and sending it out. Advertisements need to be maintained and updated to ensure it’s working to its true potential. You could be losing out on valuable segments of the market; your daily budget could be wasted on search terms that have little-to-nothing relevant to your organisation or you could be spending more of your budget on specific demographic groups.
Conclusion
All these Digital Marketing can work well individually, but undoubtably perform the best when working together. If you’re a new business, unsure where to start on your digital marketing journey, we highly recommend looking into each one of these elements, or you can contact us with any questions you may have.
