Tag: seo

The Ultimate Conversion Rate Optimisation Guide for Beginners!

Posted on by Gary Cheung

Conversion rate optimisation, or CRO for short, is a process by which you can increase the percentage of website visitors that take a desired action, such as buying a product or signing up for a service.

You have the best website in the world, but no one is buying from you. What’s the point?

We are sorry to hear that, believe us. We know it’s a tough world out there, and you need every advantage you can get.

Conversion rate optimisation is the answer. By enhancing your website design, user experience, and marketing strategy, you can turn those browsers into buyers and start making some real money.

In this guide, we will teach you all about conversion rate optimisation and how you can use it to improve your website’s performance and sales. We will also introduce you to some of the best CRO tools and tactics available today. So what are you waiting for? Let’s get started!

What Is conversion rate optimisation?

Conversion rate optimisation is the art of turning more of your website visitors into customers. It’s about creating an experience that’s so compelling, people can’t help but take action.

It’s not about tricking or manipulating, it’s about understanding what motivates your audience and delivering on that promise.

By focusing on CRO, you’re not just boosting your bottom line, you’re building a brand that people trust and want to do business with.

Why is conversion rate optimisation important?

Now, with online shopping skyrocketing in the wake of COVID-19, it’s no wonder that online sales and conversion optimisation are becoming a real science.

An informed, data-driven approach with quantitative data is crucial to understanding how your customers are behaving. What are they doing once they leave the search engine results page? What are they doing on your web pages? How to drive their actions toward lucrative sales?

The growth of online retail
Source: beeketing.com

But any smart salesperson will tell you that this is a far-from-simple process. You must understand how to optimise your website, and sales funnel to really drive conversions.

CRO is the perfect plan for online sales success! Whether you do it yourself with CRO testing tools or use CRO services, CRO can get any web page or landing page to make more sales.

This is what CRO strategy is all about. It’s a complex and data-driven field of digital marketing. But never fear, we have top CRO tips and tricks your business needs!

Read on to smash your sales quotas, and conversion rates rise to the top of the world!

CRO will make people want to buy your products sold online
Using CRO will have more people taking out their credit cards to buy your products!

CRO & SEO – What’s the difference?

If you’ve worked in the digital marketing space, chances are you’ve come across the terms SEO and CRO. But what do they actually mean? SEO, or search engine optimisation, involves strategising and implementing tactics to improve a website’s visibility in search engines like Google.

On the other hand, CRO (conversion rate optimisation) focuses on optimising a website for more conversions – whether that be sales, sign-ups, or any desired action. While SEO and CRO often go hand-in-hand, they have distinct goals and strategies. SEO typically takes longer to see results, while CRO can yield immediate improvements. Both are important components of a successful digital marketing strategy.

Ultimately, SEO helps bring potential customers to your website, while CRO helps turn those visitors into actual customers or leads. As always with marketing, it’s essential to assess what your goals are and determine the right mix of SEO and CRO tactics to achieve them.

SEM campaign with first Page

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How to calculate & measure my conversion rate?

The conversion rate is a metric used in web analytics to measure the success of converting website visitors into customers or subscribers. It can be calculated by dividing the number of converted users by the total number of website visitors and expressing it as a percentage.

For example, if a website has 1,000 visitors and 100 of them make a purchase, the conversion rate would be 10%. This metric can help measure the effectiveness of marketing campaigns and refining website design to improve conversion.

However, it is important to note that conversion rate alone does not give a complete picture of how successful a website or campaign is performing. Other factors such as average transaction value and repeat customers also contribute to overall profitability and should be considered when analysing conversion rates.

Remember to calculate your conversion rate, divide the number of conversions in a specific period by the total number of visitors to your site, then multiply it by 100%.

calculate conversion rate with this formula
Source: theonlineadvertisingguide.com

Where to implement a CRO strategy.

As a digital marketing agency, we believe that the most impactful place to implement a conversion rate optimisation strategy is wherever your potential customers are making decisions about your brand.

You see, CRO isn’t just about boosting your bottom line, it’s about creating an experience that is so compelling, intuitive, and human that people can’t help but take action.

Think about it. Every interaction a potential customer has with your brand is an opportunity for them to make a decision about whether or not they want to do business with you.

Whether it’s landing on your homepage, browsing your product pages, filling out a form, or making a purchase, each of these touchpoints is a chance to build trust and create a connection.

So, where do you start? First, it’s important to understand your audience and what motivates them. What are they looking for? Do you know their pain points? Are you aware of the value they want? Once you have this information, you can create an experience that speaks to their needs and desires.

Next, analyse your website data and user behavior to identify where the biggest opportunities for improvement are. Is your bounce rate high on certain pages? Are people abandoning their carts at checkout? These are the areas that you should prioritise for optimisation. Check out this awesome e-book from our CRO partner VWO on how to reduce cart abandonment.

And finally, don’t forget that CRO is an ongoing process. Regularly test and iterate to continuously improve the conversion rate. The world is always changing, and your audience is always evolving.

By staying attuned to their needs and continuously optimising your website, you’ll not only boost your bottom line, but you’ll also build a brand that people trust and want to do business with.

What is a good conversion rate?

Recent studies show that the average CRO falls between 2-5%. But there are outliers who are consistently achieving conversions of 11.5% and higher. The question is, how are some sites pulling this off!??

conversion rates
Source: wordstream.com
average conversion rates
Source: wordstream.com

Conversion rate optimisation best practices.

We believe that the key to successful conversion rate optimisation (CRO) lies in following best practices that are both data-driven and customer-focused.

Here are a few of our top recommendations:

Know your audience:

Before making any changes to your website, it’s essential to understand who your target audience is and what motivates them. This will inform the decisions you make about website design, content, and messaging.

Test, test, test:

CRO is all about continuous improvement, and the best way to achieve that is through regular testing. Test different elements of your website, such as headlines, images, and call-to-actions, to see what resonates with your audience and drives conversions.

Make it easy:

The easier it is for people to take the desired action, the more likely they are to do so. Streamline the checkout process, minimise the number of steps required to complete a form, and make sure that important information is easy to find.

Focus on the customer experience:

The overall experience a customer has on your website can make or break a conversion. Make sure that your website is user-friendly, visually appealing, and provides a seamless experience from start to finish.

Use data to inform decisions:

Data is your friend when it comes to CRO. Use website analytics to understand how people are interacting with your website and identify areas for improvement.

By following these best practices, you’ll be well on your way to creating a website that drives conversions and grows your business.

Keen to learn more about on-page SEO?

We have a great post on on-page SEO. You can read it to learn more fast!

Learn more
UX, SEO, and web design

CRO kickstart checklist.

Here is a CRO kickstart checklist to help you get started with optimising your website for conversions:

Define your conversion goal:

What action do you want visitors to take on your website? Whether it’s making a purchase, filling out a form, or signing up for a newsletter, defining your goal will help guide your optimisation efforts.

Analyse website data:

Use website analytics to understand how people are currently interacting with your website. Look for patterns and trends in visitor behavior to identify areas for improvement.

Conduct user research:

Talk to your customers and gather feedback on their experience using your website. This can help you identify areas where the user experience can be improved.

Identify areas for improvement:

Based on your analysis of website data and user research, identify areas of your website that can be optimised to drive conversions.

Prioritise optimisation efforts:

Not all areas of your website are created equal. Prioritise the areas with the biggest impact on conversions to maximise your results.

Test more than often:

Regular testing is key to continuous improvement in CRO. Start with small, simple tests and work your way up to more complex tests as you become more confident in the process.

Monitor results:

Use website analytics to track the impact of your optimisation efforts on conversions. This will help you understand what’s working and what’s not, so you can make informed decisions about future optimisation efforts.

By following this CRO kickstart checklist, you’ll be well on your way to optimising your website for conversions and growing your business.

CRO happiness
The bliss of happy users because of CRO.

Essential tools for conversion rate optimisation.

What are some quantitative tools for CRO?

Web analytics tools:

When it comes to website optimisation, data and insights are essential. And one of the best ways to gather this information is through web analytics tools.

Tools such as Google Analytics can provide valuable insights into website traffic, visitor behavior, and conversion rates.

Heat mapping software:

Tools like Hotjar and Crazy Egg allow you to see how visitors interact with your website by creating visual representations of clicks, taps, and mouse movements.

Survey tools:

Tools like Qualtrics and SurveyMonkey can be used to gather feedback from website visitors about their experience on the site.

Form analytics:

Tools such as Zuko can help you track and analyse form submissions and identify areas for improvement.

By leveraging these tools, you can gather data-driven insights that inform your optimisation efforts and help you improve the performance of your website.

What are some qualitative tools for CRO?

Several qualitative tools can be used for conversion rate optimisation (CRO) to gather insights into the user experience and identify areas for improvement:

User testing:

Conducting in-person or remote user tests can provide valuable insights into how people interact with your website and identify areas for improvement.

Customer interviews:

Talking to your customers directly can provide valuable insights into their experience using your website and help you identify areas for improvement.

User feedback tools:

Tools such as UserVoice and Qualaroo allow website visitors to provide feedback on their experience using the site.

Session recording software:

Tools like FullStory and Mouseflow allow you to see how visitors interact with your website in real-time, including mouse movements, clicks, and scrolling.

You may acquire a deeper insight of the user experience on your website and pinpoint areas for improvement by utilising these qualitative tools. You may then use this information to inform your optimisation efforts and enhance the functionality of your website.

What about A/B testing for CRO?

A/B testing, also known as split testing, is a method used in conversion rate optimisation (CRO) to compare two or more versions of a web page to determine which version performs best in terms of driving conversions.

Here’s how A/B testing can help with your CRO efforts:

Data-driven decision-making:

By comparing different versions of your web page, A/B testing provides data-driven insights into what changes have the biggest impact on conversions. This information can then be used to inform your optimisation efforts and make data-driven decisions about the design and layout of your website.

Continual improvement:

A/B testing allows you to make small, incremental changes to your website over time, which can help you continuously improve the user experience and increase conversions.

Increased confidence:

By running controlled experiments, A/B testing provides a level of confidence in the results of your optimisation efforts. This allows you to make informed decisions about changes to your website based on real-world data.

Increased conversion rate:

By making data-driven changes to your website based on the results of A/B tests, you can increase the conversion rate of your website, leading to more conversions and increased revenue.

In summary, A/B testing is a powerful tool for conversion rate optimisation that can help you make data-driven decisions, continually improve the user experience, increase confidence in your optimisation efforts, and ultimately increase your website’s conversion rate.

Will CRO benefit my business?

There’s no point in having a sizzling SEO strategy if the traffic you’re generating doesn’t take the action you need. Conversion Rate Optimisation is the missing piece of the puzzle, driving engagement and achieving tangible results. It’s the kind of online activity that has noticeable, real-world effects.

These are the top 5 advantages of CRO.

  • You can quickly and efficiently produce the best ROI by using effective CRO.
  • CRO aids in your website’s ascent to the top of Google’s SERPs, resulting in more traffic and visibility.
  • You can learn more about your consumers’ demands, behaviors, and patterns thanks to these analytics and data analysis.
  • Your consumers have a seamless and easy buying process thanks to it. Increased engagement is a result of great UX!
  • You will increase conversions and significantly outperform your rivals who, for the most part, won’t make an effort to optimise their conversion rates.

Conclusion – Conversion rate optimisation delivers sales Superstardom!!

If you’re serious about leads generated and sales, then converting online visitors into paying customers should be at the top of your to-do list!! It’s a strategy that works hand in hand with search engine optimisation – gaining visibility and driving traffic, then turning these leads into lucrative sales.

Conversion Rate Optimisation should be on the mind of every business owner who wants to sell online. If you’re not thinking about how to connect the dots and drive serious sales, then all your hard work, from business growth to product development and search engine optimisation, will have been for nothing. Focus on more sales and more customer satisfaction, now!

Time to find a trustable CRO agency for your next CRO project.

CRO isn’t easy, but luckily, First Page is the expert digital marketing agency that Hong Kong businesses need to succeed! We have years of SEO and CRO experience – combining our skillsets to get you found online – driving serious traffic, and exploding your conversions!!

First Page is the digital marketing agency to trust when you need a high-quality conversion rate optimisation agency and its assistance to increase your online sales. 

Contact our account managers today to see your conversions and sales skyrocket!

Ready to reach page one on Google?

We know you want to make real money! Get ready to convert customers like crazy. Please do not delay. Contact us today!

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Extra reading for you – CRO tips for success!

Whether it’s through A/B testing, user research, or other optimisation techniques, the goal is always the same: to help companies succeed by turning their website into a powerful conversion money making machine!

What are the 7 ways to increase your conversion rates?

CRO success
CRO success is more than just a good time, it is a party!

1. Use A/B testing

You can compare the effectiveness of various online marketing techniques using A/B testing. A/B testing involves creating two versions of a website, webpage, blog article, or landing page to determine which one is most popular with users. Today’s market is flooded with A/B testing tools, enabling you to try out various CRO strategies.

how to improve conversions
Source: unbounce.com

2. Drive Your Buyers Journey With Quality Content

There are four steps on the buyer’s journey:

  • Awareness
  • Interest & Evaluation
  • Desire
  • Action
The sales funnel. Source: alldigitalinnovation.com

At the Awareness stage, you’ll need to create copy that includes quality backlinks. Building links from quality websites will help you generate authority and expertise.

At the Interest stage, you can benefit from an attention-grabbing content strategy. Standout blog posts, pics, and clips of your products and brand will work well here.

Desire is all about making visitors want your product because it’s better than the competition. You can show this with real testimonials, reviews, and case studies that communicate the benefits of your brand.

As for the Action – this needs to take place at all costs! It’s consumer behavior that will make a real difference to your business. And if you can’t achieve it, then the journey simply isn’t complete.

Offering a free trial of your service, a money-back guarantee, competitions, or creative content that guides your visitors to purchase are all effective Conversion Rate Optimisation strategies.

3. Use a chatbot

Incorporating chatbots into your CRO strategy can be a valuable asset for your website. Chatbots allow for instant communication with visitors, providing them with information and assistance while they are actively engaged on your site.

This direct approach can help to increase conversion rates by addressing specific concerns and guiding visitors towards taking desired actions.

Additionally, chatbots can collect data about customer behavior and preferences, helping to improve overall website optimisation.

By implementing a chatbot, businesses can not only improve the user experience, but also gather valuable insights to make informed CRO decisions.

It is important to note, however, that chatbots should supplement rather than replace human interaction.

By combining the convenience and efficiency of chatbots with personalised attention from customer service representatives, businesses can both enhance conversions and create positive experiences for their customers.

One of the common criticisms of chatbots is that they’re impersonal and ineffective.

But statistics show that chatbot use and positive interactions are skyrocketing…

  • 40% of millennials use chatbots every day.
  • 67% of millennials would buy a service or product using a chatbot.
  • 70% of millennials report positive experience when engaging with chatbots.
  • 66% of millennials and 58% of Baby Boomers see 24/7 service as the main benefit of using a chatbot.

As you can see, chatbots can make a difference with conversion optimisation. We recommend adding one, especially if you have an eCommerce site.

conversion rates
A buyer about to convert.

4. Audit Your Website

With a careful combination of both SEO and CRO services, you’ll be able to discover the exact strategies that are converting.

These are the questions you or your analytics team will need to explore…

  • What’s your bounce rate? Where does this occur most onsite? Is it on landing pages, blog articles or product web pages?
  • How do visitors find your site? Which ads or links are performing best?
  • Are people using desktops or mobile devices to access your site?
  • Which parts of your website are achieving the most engagement?
  • What are the demographics of your users? And does this match up with your target audience?

5. Write CTAs that drive the user behavior you want

CTAs are crucial because they’re one of the most direct drivers of behavior anywhere on your site. If you’re smart about your CTAs, then you’ll get a jump on your competition because it’s a design feature that’s often overlooked…

CTA and CRO

To write a successful CTA for lead generation, you’ll need to ensure that your call to action…

  • Is colorful and stands out
  • Includes copy that encourages visitors to take action (“Visit Our Store”, “Click to Subscribe” etc).
  • Is designed to be unmissable and really pops on the page!!

6. Should you optimise your page speed?

Yes, you should! It’s vital to make sure your page is loading quickly. Landing page optimisation is exceptionally important.

CRO and page speed
Source: marketingsherpa.com

Your site MUST run quickly and smoothly on all devices, particularly mobiles, to avoid your bounce rate rising and your conversation rate falling. You can check your mobile page loading time using Google Analytics.

7. Improve your UX and make online sales super easy

Your customers need a smooth sales process. In simple terms, your visitors want to find, research, and purchase your products as quickly and easily as possible.

When it comes to making sales online, a positive user experience (UX) can make all the difference. Poor UX can lead to frustration and abandoned carts, while stellar UX can increase conversion rates (CRO).

So how can businesses improve their UX and make it easy for customers to purchase products or services? One way is by streamlining the checkout process.

This means reducing the number of steps required to complete a purchase and automating forms so that customers don’t have to constantly re-enter personal information. Another aspect of UX that should be evaluated is website navigation.

Can customers easily find what they are looking for, or do they get lost in a maze of confusing menus and subcategories? Providing clear and intuitive navigation can also lead to an increase in online sales. By prioritising CRO and UX, businesses can create a seamless purchasing experience for their customers.

Any impediments to this process will break your sales funnel and destroy your Conversion Rate Optimisation. If your customer journey is complicated, unclear, or requires excessive personal information, then this will be killing your conversions.

Make your sales funnel simple with clear CTAs and avoid asking them to fill out long forms. Finally, your cart or checkout MUST be seamless and simple to ensure an outstanding user experience.

CRO
Be happy like this chap with CRO.

What else apart from good CRO can drive traffic and sales?

Are you a busy business owner? You may not have the time to run the marketing tactics you need to make money regularly. If this is the case, we encourage you to review some of our strategic marketing services to drive more sales:

Using Google’s MUM (Multitask United Model) to Improve Your Search Ranking

Posted on by Stephanie Wong

You know how your mom always told you to focus on one task at a time if you wanted to get something done, right? It turns out that Google’s taking the same approach with its search engine results! Utilizing cutting-edge artificial intelligence, Google is making substantial efforts to raise the caliber of search results with Google MUM.

First, it was the release of RankBrain in 2015, then BERT in 2019, and now the search engine giant is ushering in yet another era with the introduction of its Multitask United Model or MUM.

It is insane to think just how much more powerful this Natural Language Processing Model MUM is. When multitasking, it is 1000 times more powerful than BERT. MUM can analyze text, pictures, and video in 75 languages to provide users with the answers to difficult search questions.

What does this mean for you? Read on to find out!

Table of contents

What is Google’s MUM, and how does it work?

Google’s Multitask United Model, or MUM, is a new Artificial Intelligence (AI) system designed to improve the accuracy of Natural Language Processing (NLP) models. NLP is a branch of AI that deals with understanding and generating human language.

MUM is a Multitask Learning (MTL) model, which is trained on multiple tasks simultaneously to learn how to generalize to new tasks better.

The idea behind MUM is that by training on multiple tasks at once, the model will be better able to learn the commonalities between them and thus achieve greater accuracy on new tasks.

Google has said that MUM outperforms state-of-the-art NLP models on several standard benchmarks, including sentiment analysis, question answering, and textual entailment.

In addition, MUM is also more efficient than previous models, requiring less training data and fewer computational resources.

This implies that MUM will integrate various elements of the user’s search query and attempt to comprehend feelings, context, entities, and, most crucially, the user’s purpose/intent to give results that are remarkably similar to what the user anticipated.

It is still the early days for Google’s MUM, and it will have a few iterations to come in the future. Whatever the case, MUM matters, meaning searches will serve information that provides helpful, related insights. So how to prepare and get ready? 

Search engines impact how content is created since they prioritize keywords, phrases, purpose, and other essential components.

Therefore, should AI change how businesses, SEOs, and agencies attract clients and keep them engaged while ensuring we optimize the visibility Google MUM can offer?

This is a far more complex, intelligent search algorithm that will surface more relevant and helpful information by considering many factors simultaneously and in multiple languages.

Indeed Google is preparing us for the total onslaught of MUM by introducing the recent “Helpful Content Update” and “Spam Update.”

Already, inappropriately positioned content via keyword stuffing will vanish faster than before.

This affirms how crucial user experience, content, general SEO, accessibility, and intent are for success in the digital age.

Ultimately, content must be superior to a few strategically placed keywords to rank anywhere on a page. It must make the best use of the multimedia formats that Google MUM considers.

Remember, Google’s core concern will be its end users, the searcher. Therefore content marketers must approach their job with this in mind.

How can you improve your website’s search ranking and prepare for MUM?

Anyone who has tried to improve their website’s search ranking knows it can be a challenge.

Many different factors go into SEO, and it can be challenging to keep track of all of them.

However, there is a straightforward principle that can help you to get ahead of MUM. Work hard to make your content more helpful and usable for humans.

Here are a few tips from us:

  • Be helpful and use keywords and other optimization techniques in a way that makes sense for humans, not just search engines.
  • Utilize organized data. The markups on each website feed Google’s Knowledge Graph, where it gets all this information.
  • Leave keyword stuffing behind. Put greater emphasis on humanized content that speaks to the audience’s concerns and problems they want to be solved.
  • Consider long-form content. Since long-form content can offer a significant portion of the information consumers are looking for, this content will rank well.
  • Get ready because MUM will soon be here. Therefore, it is preferable to keep the text straightforward and easily understandable.
  • Remember, as little jargon as possible. Jargon-filled content decreases the likelihood that MUM will find it relevant.
  • Pay attention to design. Google likes websites that are easy to navigate and visually appealing. It’s time to redesign your site if it’s cluttered.
  • Improve your user experience. Google wants visitors to have a positive experience on your site, so make sure your pages load quickly, and that navigation is easy to understand.
  • Consider adding features such as social sharing buttons or customer testimonials.

By following these principles, you can improve your website’s search ranking (anyway) and make it more user-friendly and ready for MUM in the meantime.

Final thoughts on Google’s MUM

Google’s MUM is powerful and soon to be at our doorsteps. All the recent updates from Google, like the Spam and Helpful Content updates, indicate that Google Search is changing.

Google’s MUM expands the search landscape to a more global experience. Google’s MUM tries to comprehend more about what we could be looking for than any search engine has ever before.

Preparing for Google’s MUM should be at the forefront of any digital marketing team, SEO professional, or content producer. The time is now, not tomorrow, to be ready.

While some of these link-building strategies may be more effective than others, it’s important to remember that there is no one-size-fits-all solution.

What works for one business might not work for another, so you’ll need to experiment until you find the techniques that produce the best results for your company.

That said, if you’re looking for help to get ahead of MUM, feel free to give us a call or review our SEO and premium content services. We would be happy to share our expertise and help you prepare your website for Google’s MUM NLP future. We will take your website to the next level. Thanks for reading!

What else can you do to improve your digital marketing ROI apart from SEO?

As you know, keeping ahead of the competition requires constant investment. SEO has always been an excellent digital tactic to boost your authority on search (and drive web traffic). What more can you do to improve your marketing ROI? We have some great marketing blogs that can guide you to marketing success:

You probably have a lot on your plate if you are a busy entrepreneur. If this is the case, we encourage you to review some of our strategic marketing services to drive more sales and keep you ahead of the competition:

The Google Spam Update: These are the SEO Dos and Don’ts

Posted on by Ishmael Os

Recently, Google made a major change to its search algorithm to combat “spammy” content and reward websites that provided useful, high-quality content. This update, dubbed the “Google Spam Update”, has been a game-changer for many businesses, resulting in wide swings in traffic and rankings.

On October 19, 2022, Google announced plans to roll out a global spam update to Google Search that would affect all languages.

The Google Spam Update is now complete. So it is now or never to have your content user-friendly, helpful and useful. If not, your website will suffer the consequences.

Why does Google want to do this? Because if a user consistently clicks on spammy results, it produces a bad experience and causes them to stop using Google. Now that is bad for Google and its users.

Here’s what you need to know about the Google Spam update and how it can affect your website.

Google Spam Update is here and now
Google Spam Update is here and now!

Table of contents

What is the Google Spam Update?

In short, the Google Spam Update is a change to the way Google ranks websites in its search results. What is the focus of this update?

The update from Google is all about delivering useful, helpful content to users.

The update means that the Google algorithm favors websites that provide valuable information and discourage those who use spammy tactics, such as keyword stuffing or buying links.

Before this update, sites that were heavy on keywords and light on useful content could still rank highly in Google searches.

This update has had a major impact on many businesses, especially those in competitive industries. If you’ve noticed a drop in traffic or rankings recently, it’s likely due to this update.

Following SEO best practices, like creating quality content and building natural, legitimate backlinks, can help bring your website to the top of google’s search results.

In the end, Google’s goal is to weed out those who try to cheat their way to the top and provide the most helpful results to users.

So focus on creating high-quality content for your reader or user rather than trying to trick Google’s algorithm – it will pay off in the long run.

What are some issues for you to know about with Google’s Spam Update?

Many leading SEO experts, including our in-house team, concur on three specific issues.

These three issues will put your website in the crosshairs of the update. In fact, we are almost certain that these issues will have your website penalized.

Superficial content

Superficial content is sometimes referred to thin content. What do we mean by superficial content?

Superficial or thin content can be long or short in word count and does not provide any value to the user or reader.

In essence, the information was superficial, and once you are done reading it, you have gained no new ideas or any useful information.

Keyword stuffing

Did you know that keyword stuffing is still a thing? We would have thought that many content producers would have learned this is not on by now.

Keywords should be used in a natural way that is to the benefit of the reader or user. In other words, do not stuff keywords for search as your primary goal.

Whether it was in their content on meta tags, do not use keywords excessively, which makes for a terrible reading experience!

Terrible meta tags

Take time to craft unique and readable meta tags. If you are doing the copy-and-paste way, your website will suffer!

Whatever you do, do not duplicate meta tags! Worse still, don’t simply create them for search engines.

There must also be the relevance of the meta tag to the content it represents. So, don’t try to be clickbaity with your meta tags. Keep them real!

So no the spam and accept the Google Spam Update
So no the spam and accept the Google Spam Update

How to Recover from the Google Spam Update

If your website was hit hard by the Google Spam update, don’t despair! There are some steps you can take to recover from the drop in traffic and rankings. Here is what you need to do:

First, take a close look at your website’s content

Is it truly useful and informative? If not, make some changes! Add new content or revise existing content to be more helpful to your readers or users.

Backlinks act as digital “votes” for your website and can help improve your rankings. However, not all backlinks are created equal; links from low-quality websites will actually harm your rankings. So, only pursue backlinks from websites that are relevant to your industry and have a good reputation.

Third, keep an eye on your website’s analytics

Analytics will help you identify any further dips in traffic or rankings and take action accordingly. By monitoring your website closely and making adjustments as needed, you can ensure that your website recovers fully from the Google Spam update and continues to perform well in the future.

What are the DOs and DON’Ts to succeed with the Google Spam Update?

Google’s spam update is here and now! As we mentioned, the update is designed to penalize sites with thin or low-quality content and reward sites with more useful and informative content.

Here are some dos and don’ts for the Google Spam Update:

DOsDONTs
Use keywords naturally throughout your content, and focus on providing quality information instead of worrying about keyword density.Have keywords inserted unnaturally in your copy.
Create informative, well-written, and user-friendly content.Copy others’ content!
Refresh thin or unuseful contentKeyword stuff your content and meta tags.
Write for your audience first and foremost.Focus too much on SEO at the expense of user experience.
Break your content up into smaller paragraphs with headlines.Use AI content without humanizing it.
Make it easier for users to scan your content and find the information they want.Write superficial or useless content that provides no value to the user or reader!
Help search engines understand the structure of your page so they can index your content properly.Leave your page with no structure and now H1, H2, H3, etc.
Include images, videos, and other visual elements in your posts.Have a page with no images!
Break up the text and make your content more visually appealing.Write in huge chunks of text that will be hard for the reader to read.
Include relevant keywords in your image tags so that your images are correctly indexed by search engines.Have no image tags,
Utilize credible external sources to add credibility to your data or claims. Work on getting natural, high-quality backlinks for your web pages.Provide no source for your data or claims,

The Google Spam Update will lead to happy readers and users!
Keep your readers happy with helpful content!

Final thoughts

The Google Spam Update is done and dusted. So now is the time to review your website’s content and ensure that it meets Google’s new standards.

Focus on creating informative, well-written, user-friendly content that is easy to read and navigate.

Utilize external sources to add credibility to claims, and include images and videos to break up the text.

Most importantly, don’t sacrifice quality for the sake of SEO—focus on providing a good user experience first and foremost.

The Google Spam Update has been a major shakeup for the online world, affecting both businesses and individuals alike.

Utilize the tips our expert team has given you to stay ahead of the Google Spam Update. If you’ve noticed a drop in traffic or rankings, you can take the aforementioned steps to recover.

Need help? Our team can help you focus on producing high-quality content and building backlinks from reputable websites. We can ensure that your website bounces back stronger than ever before!

Get in touch today

What else can you keep driving traffic to your website?

In any competitive market, getting quality traffic to your website is not easy. We have some great blogs you can read that will help you drive traffic like never before:

If you are a time-strapped entrepreneur, you may not have time to do digital marketing. If this is the case, we encourage you to review some of our strategic digital marketing services to drive more sales and quality web traffic:

8 Best Practice Tips for Allocating Your Digital Marketing Budget

Posted on by Ishmael Os

If you’re like most business owners, you’re always looking for ways to increase your profits. One of the best ways to do this is to allocate your digital marketing budget in a way that will have the most significant impact and ROI.

Many marketing teams may seem to have a magical digital marketing budget calculator for their marketing budgets. This could not be further from the truth. There are many factors to consider when allocating your digital marketing budget, but don’t worry – we’ve got you covered!

In this blog post, we will discuss eight best practice tips for allocating your digital marketing budgets effectively. By following these tips, you can rest assured that you’re spending your money in the best possible way!

Decide what your goals are for digital marketing

One of the most important things when it comes to digital marketing is understanding your goals. Without understanding what you want to achieve, it’s impossible to allocate your digital marketing budget effectively.

That’s why defining and measuring your goals is crucial in achieving success in digital marketing strategy. It is also wise to know how they align with the overall goals of your company.

Are you looking to increase brand awareness or drive more sales? Do you want to reach a specific audience or acquire more leads? Once you’ve determined your goals, you can allocate your digital marketing budget. Allocate it toward tactics and strategies that will help you reach those goals.

And don’t be afraid to re-evaluate and adjust your goals as necessary – flexibility is vital in this ever-changing digital world.

marketing budget allocation, know your customer journey
Know your customer journey when allocating your digital marketing budget.

Understand the customer journey for your product or service

As a seasoned digital agency, we know how important it is to allocate your marketing digital marketing budget wisely. And one of the best ways to do this is by understanding the customer journey for your product or service.

By mapping out each step of the customer’s decision-making process, from initial awareness all the way through purchase and loyalty, you can pinpoint where they need specific messaging and advertising and where you might be wasting money.

Plus, understanding the customer journey allows you to identify any potential roadblocks or barriers in their decision-making process. You can address them before they become a problem. Here your marketing team has to take control of its marketing channels with solid content marketing.

All in all, investing time and resources into understanding the customer journey will pay off. It will pay off in terms of a more successful and efficient digital marketing budget. Your marketing mix will benefit, as will your target audience and sales funnel.

Delve into your operational costs and know what they are

When it comes to online marketing, many people focus solely on the cost of ad campaigns and ignore the operational costs involved.

However, it is essential to understand and account for these costs and marketing expenses. Doing so will set your digital marketing budget in a more informed way. Operational costs can include website hosting fees, subscription services, equipment expenses, digital software licenses, other maintenance costs, and employee training.

By understanding and keeping track of these costs, you can allocate your digital marketing budget more effectively.

So don’t let operational costs fall by the wayside. Knowing where your money is going allows you to make smarter choices and generate a higher ROI.

Assess your previous digital marketing activities

In the digital age, companies need to stay on top of their digital marketing game. That means continuously evaluating previous campaigns and allocating digital marketing budgets accordingly.

The success or failure of past marketing activities can provide valuable insight into the effectiveness of particular strategies and where resources should be invested in the future.

Without adequately assessing previous digital campaign efforts, it would be difficult to determine which tactics are worth spending money on and which ones should be abandoned. In a competitive market, online marketing budget allocation is critical in distinguishing a company’s brand and reaching new customers.

As Steve Jobs said, “Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.”

Staying aware of digital trends and staying nimble with digital budget allocation helps keep a company at the forefront of innovation – and, ultimately, success.

competition analysis is essential for marketing budgets
Research your competition without fail when planning out your digital marketing budget.

Research your competition and find out what strategies they are using

Regarding online budget allocation, one of the most valuable sources of information is your competition.

By doing thorough research on what strategies your competitors are using, we can see where they are investing the majority of their resources and where they may be lacking.

This allows you to make informed decisions regarding your own digital marketing budget allocation, avoiding pitfalls and targeting opportunities for success. You can also see if the competitor’s marketing plan has solved any customer pain points.

It’s not enough to simply “stay ahead” of the game; we need to constantly track and analyze their efforts to truly make your business more competitive.

Competition research is a crucial aspect of creating a successful digital marketing strategy and should never be overlooked.

So let’s get down to business – let’s analyze our competitors and use that knowledge to dominate the digital marketing realm.

Set a marketing budget that you are comfortable with and be prepared to adjust it as needed

It’s all too easy for digital marketing budgets to get out of control, with cost overruns in areas like paid search and social media advertising. But a simple formula can help keep your digital marketing budget allocation on track.

Start by determining the overall sales revenue you want to generate from digital channels over a specific period of time. Next, identify the conversion rate for each digital marketing channel – how many visitors do you need to generate a sale?

Finally, divide your desired sales revenue by the conversion rate to determine the necessary online marketing budget for each digital channel. This formula helps ensure that marketing spending is targeted toward high-performing channels, ultimately driving maximum sales revenue.

So next time you allocate your digital marketing budget, remember the formula: desired sales revenue divided by conversion rate. It’s a no-brainer approach to poise your digital efforts for success.

What are the best channels?

When it comes to digital marketing, the most important thing to focus on is ROI. It’s not enough to just have a presence on all social media channels or to constantly be pumping out content. This is true for small businesses as well as for enterprises.

You need to evaluate where your budget is going to have the greatest return. On all your social media campaigns, search engine optimization, digital advertising, agency fees, content marketing costs, etc., calculate ROI. That means taking a close look at each digital channel and determining its effectiveness in reaching your target customers and driving conversions.

Is your email marketing campaign generating a high number of clicks? Are Instagram ads driving more sales than Facebook ads?

Continuously reassessing and reallocating your budget based on ROI will ensure that you are getting the most bang for your buck.

Don’t spread yourself too thin by trying to dominate every digital channel; focus on the ones that are driving results and success for your business.

digital marketing budget allocation and learning to get the best result.
Never fear with making a mistake, just make sure you are learning.

What happens if you get the budget allocation wrong?

You know the drill. Allocate too little, and you’ll miss out on valuable opportunities to expand your reach and connect with potential customers. Allocate too much, and you may waste resources on ineffective strategies.

But the good news is that even if you do make a mistake in budget allocation, it’s not the end of the world. In fact, it can be a valuable lesson in learning where traditionally successful tactics may not be as effective in a digital space and where digital platforms can offer unique opportunities for success.

The important thing is to stay nimble and open to reallocating marketing budgets based on what drives the best results for your brand. At the end of the day, digital marketing is all about testing, tweaking, and constantly finding new ways to stand out from the crowd.

So embrace any budgeting mistakes as an opportunity for growth and learning.

Final thoughts

At the end of the day, it’s important to remember that your digital marketing budget is an investment, and like all investments, you need to be smart about where you put your money.

Remember to start with your marketing goals. Without this, your marketing spending and digital marketing efforts will go to waste.

Hopefully, these expert tips have given you a few ideas for making the most of your budget and seeing better results from your online marketing campaigns. It should work better than a magical digital marketing budget calculator.

If you want to learn more about any of these topics or dive even deeper into your digital marketing strategy, or traditional marketing strategy, don’t hesitate to reach out! We love helping businesses grow through effective online marketing.

FAQs on digital marketing spend

Can marketing automation software help with your marketing budget?

Marketing automation software and AI-driven software may assist marketers in gathering and analyzing performance data to pinpoint the budget line item that provides teams with the greatest return on investment and change marketing budgets appropriately.

What digital marketing budget template can I use?

You can easily make a digital marketing budget template in Excel following the tips above. Alternatively, there are some great online tools that have options for a solid digital marketing budget template. Our favorites are Miro and Monday.

What role does content marketing play in marketing budget planning?

By producing and disseminating pertinent articles, videos, podcasts, and other media, content marketing is a marketing tactic used to draw in, hold onto, and grow an audience. Content marketing and budget are closely aligned. You will want to allocate the budget to content marketing tactics that give you the best ROI. That way, you can be sure that your ad costs to promote your content will be well spent.

Explosive Fintech Marketing Strategies (Our 3 Favorites Revealed)

Posted on by Aaron Radcliffe

Over the last five years, Fintech has undoubtedly become one of the most dominant industries in the business world. This article will give you an insider look at the best Fintech marketing strategies. By using these proven methods, you can unlock immense growth, double your leads, and build a loyal user base that will catapult your business to the top of your industry.

Did you know that 90% of all Americans currently use Fintech, and Fintech startups make up nearly 40% of all unicorns worldwide? 

But along with immense growth has come increased competition. Fintech is more saturated than ever, and it’s getting increasingly challenging to stand out and acquire new customers.

This is why it’s more important than ever to implement a marketing strategy that is proven to be effective for Fintech companies like yours. 

Table of contents

Fintech marketing vs. ‘regular’ marketing

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What’s the difference between Fintech marketing and ‘regular’ marketing?

Fintech stands for ‘financial technology,’ and while any financial company that has a website can technically be categorized as a Fintech company, the term is typically reserved for innovative companies that are disrupting the financial industry. 

It should be noted that this article will be covering marketing strategies for non-crypto Fintech companies. If you run a crypto company, be sure to read our complete guide to crypto marketing. 

Fintech is an industry that caters to both B2B and B2C. 

Some noteworthy B2C Fintech companies are…

  • Venmo
  • Robinhood
  • Earny
  • Acorns
  • Lemonade

And some notable B2B Fintech companies are…

  • Plaid
  • Stripe
  • Square
  • Klarna

Many Fintech companies are a B2B/B2C fusion, some of the most noteworthy being banking solutions such as Wise (formerly Transferwise) and Revolut. 

The best marketing strategies for Fintech startups

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These are the best marketing strategies for Fintech startups

Regardless if you are B2B or B2C, Fintech marketing strategies need to focus on key aspects that are proven to grow your awareness and revenue. 

To accomplish this, your Fintech startup needs to relentlessly build trust and authority.

But what are the best ways to scale that?

Below are three proven marketing strategies that Fintech companies use to convert cold website visitors into blazing hot brand advocates.

#1 – Landing page optimization

The truth is undeniable – getting traffic to your website can be EXPENSIVE.

No matter if you are scaling an SEO campaign, investing in performance media, or focusing on OOH advertising, the truth is that traffic can be costly.

This is why the best Fintech companies invest in optimizing their sites for conversions before they start investing in traffic acquisition. 

If done correctly, your landing page will create a sense of trust and authority with your visitors, and therefore convert them into leads. 

To accomplish this, it means that your landing pages need to…

  • Be well-designed
  • Have a simple UX
  • Load lightning-fast
  • Be filled with rich copy
  • Implement magnetic CTAs
  • And more…

Does your homepage have testimonials? Doing so can increase conversions by 62%. 

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Fintech startup Lemonade uses testimonials perfectly on their homepage

Does your homepage have video content? It could lead to visitors spending twice as long on your site.

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Fintech goliath Wise uses a video demo on their homepage to increase trust

Are your landing pages loading slowly? If so, 90% of your traffic could be going to your competitors. 

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Fintech company Venmo’s homepage is simple and lightning-fast

Ultimately, hiring an experienced agency to develop your landing pages is working smarter, not harder. By doing so, you will ensure that your brand makes the right impact on your visitors, and in doing so, your conversion rates will shoot through the roof. Getting your landing pages right is one of the foundations of solid Fintech marketing strategies.

#2 – Content Marketing

If you are in the Fintech industry, you are probably aware that most of your competitors are heavily invested in content marketing. 

And the truth is, that for Fintech, content marketing is not an option – it is 100% mandatory.

Here’s why…

We established that Fintech companies need to create a sense of authority and build trust with their customers.

And simply put, content marketing is the best way to do that.

Sure, traditionally, this content marketing refers to the articles that are buried in the ‘Blog’ section of your site. Still, Fintech companies are taking content marketing to the next level to create more transparent and trustworthy relationships with their customers. 

Some examples are…

Titan (a Fintech investment app) has a video of their CIO (Chief Investment Officer) introducing their product and brand during the onboarding process.

Fintech marketing strategies with Titan
Investment Fintech startup Titan uses a fantastic video during their onboarding process to help create a more personalized experience

Or how on Venmo’s in-app crypto page, they feature a handful of articles to help educate their user base on the basics, and dangers, of crypto.

Fintech marketing strategies with Venmo
Venmo focuses intently on educating their user base by placing helpful content throughout their app

Or how Stripe runs a conference every year.

Fintech marketing strategies with Stripe
Stripe’s events help build their trust and authority in the Fintech space

All of these examples are showing Fintech companies building trust by educating leads, which helps grow their user base and overall revenue. 

Content marketing isn’t easy. It should be considered a long game when formulating Fintech marketing strategies – after all, building trust takes time. 

One of the best ways to build trust is through blogging because it not only helps to educate users who are visiting your site, but also for potential leads who are searching for solutions to their problems on Google.

Speaking of which…

#3 – SEO

Out of all forms of digital marketing, SEO hands-down delivers the best ROI. In fact, we’ve been able to help clients achieve up to 75x return on marketing spend in only six months’ time. 

This is because of the nature of SEO – it delivers highly qualified organic traffic that comes in on autopilot day after day. 

Many Fintech companies are very aware of the benefits of SEO and are investing heavily in it. 

One of the best examples is Wise.

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When it comes to SEO, Wise clearly knows what they are doing

As you can see, Wise has a DR of 82, has generated 12 million backlinks, and gets over 15 million organic visitors per month. 

This is obviously a game-changing amount of traffic, but to learn from their SEO strategy, we have to look under the hood to see what sort of content they are investing in, and how it’s translating to website visitors.

If we take a deeper look into their keyword rankings, we can see that most of their traffic comes from branded searches (aka people searching for ‘Wise’ or their original name ‘Transferwise’).

Fintech marketing strategies with WISE and leveraging competitors
Branded searches will obviously bring in traffic

It makes sense – most established brands get traffic from these sorts of keywords, but it’s not evidence of a scaled SEO strategy that is designed to bring in leads. 

So instead of looking at their website, let’s look at the traffic going JUST to their US blog (wise.com/us/blog).

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Wise’s blog alone brings in over 350K visitors per month!

Boom. Their US blog by itself is bringing in over 350,000 visitors every single month.

But what’s even more interesting is the keywords Wise is targeting, and the traffic they are getting from those posts.

They are publishing content about their competitors.

Fintech marketing strategies with WISE
Wise targets the branded keywords of not just themselves, but also their competitors

They are publishing content targeting business owners.

Fintech marketing strategies with WISE and content marketing
Wise offers business accounts and is using a strategy to help target business owners
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Wise is also investing in lifestyle content/SEO, which few of their competitors are doing

And most interesting of all, Wise is publishing a variety of helpful lifestyle content like ‘How to Move to Japan’ and ‘Best International Dating Apps.’

At first glance, you might be wondering “Why is a Fintech banking app writing about dating apps?”

It is not just about leads!

Well, Wise is clearly not just focused on generating leads – they are also keenly focused on building awareness. By scaling SEO-ed lifestyle content, they are tapping into an entire market of consumers who didn’t even know they existed.

Fintech marketing strategies with SEO
Wise is putting on a masterclass for how to build an SEO funnel at scale

And because of the nature of SEO, these leads are pouring in day after day, therefore growing awareness for the Wise brand, and bringing thousands of people down their funnel on autopilot.

This is undoubtedly one of the biggest reasons why Wise has grown so fast and is currently valued at over 11 billion USD.  As Wise shows us, Fintech marketing strategies really need SEO too.

And just as importantly, it’s why every Fintech company needs an SEO marketing strategy. 

People also ask

How do you market a Fintech company?

Marketing for Fintech companies follows the same basic principles of any marketing campaign, but extra emphasis is placed on building trust with educational content. The reason for this is that Fintech can still be a newer concept to some people, especially for those who are used to more traditional fintech alternatives. 

By creating world-class landing pages, and investing in content marketing and SEO, your Fintech startup can see explosive growth very quickly.

How do you measure the success of a Fintech marketing campaign?

Measuring the success of any marketing campaign can be challenging. You need to know exactly where your traffic is coming from, how your leads are converting, and which avenues to attribute everything to. 

By working with a professional agency, you can design a scalable, holistic funnel that builds awareness and grows brand loyalty.  

What are the objectives of a Fintech marketing campaign?

Fintech marketing campaigns should be designed to either grow awareness, or generate leads. 

Obviously most Fintech companies are looking for leads, but growing awareness is a crucial step in creating more leads, and this can be made exponentially more effective with a well-oiled SEO campaign.

Final thoughts on the best Fintech marketing strategies

The basics of Fintech marketing are simple – educate your users to build trust and authority.

But the way you choose to execute your strategy will determine your overall success. Be invest heavily in SEO and content marketing, and combine those efforts with other marketing tactics such as reputation management and performance media marketing.
If you are looking to explode the growth of your Fintech company, be sure to reach out to a First Page specialist today.

5 Mind-Blowing SAAS Marketing Campaigns (+ Detailed Case Studies)

Posted on by Aaron Radcliffe

At the pandemic’s beginning, SAAS companies experienced a nearly unprecedented hot streak. Are you a SAAS company looking to improve your marketing strategy? In this article, we’ll cover the best SAAS marketing strategies for you to consider. These will help you increase your conversation rates, decrease your churn rates, and explode your recurring revenue.

SalesForce grew by 51%, Shopify grew by 225%, and the industry as a whole seemed to be completely unstoppable. 

But by the end of 2021, things started to cool down. SAAS companies saw a 46 percentage point drop in overall growth.

Nowadays, SAAS is far and away one of the best business models out there. However, the industry as a whole is still experiencing a post-pandemic market correction. The SAAS industry is becoming increasingly competitive and saturated. 

This means, now more than ever, your SAAS company needs to use your marketing budget wisely, and in a way that creates the best ROI. 

Let’s get started on the best SAAS marketing strategies for your SAAS business. You will be increasing your conversation rates, decreasing your churn rates, and exploding your recurring revenue in no time!

Table of contents

What’s the difference between SAAS marketing an regular marketing?

You might be wondering to yourself…

“Is there really any difference between SAAS marketing and marketing for any other company?”

And the answer is sort of ‘yes’… and also sort of ‘no’.

No matter what kind of company you run, or which niche you are in, marketing principles are tried and true. You need a solid brand, a well-oiled funnel, persuasive copy, and the ability to execute a campaign at scale. 

But having said that, SAAS companies do run by a different set of rules, and because of that, there are unique marketing strategies that can help optimize your growth. 

Let’s look at our 5 favorite SAAS marketing strategies. 

#1 – Measuring the right data

SAAS marketing strategies

This might seem like a strange place to start, but honestly, it’s the most crucial aspect. We guarantee that the large majority of your competitors are focusing on the wrong data.

Why is data so important?

Because recurring revenue is a game of its own, and because of this it needs to be tracked in its own unique ways. 

Once you know how to properly track your most important KPIs, you can then focus on optimizing every step of your funnel. This, in turn, lowers your customer acquisition costs. 

Here are the metrics that your competitors are probably tracking…

  • Traffic to website
  • Monthly revenue
  • Churn rate
  • Costs per click
  • Keyword rankings
  • Number of social media followers

While these metrics are important, they only show a small part of what’s really happening to your SAAS business. To get a true look under the hood of your engine, you need to also be following metrics such as…

  • Activation rate
  • MRR/ARR
  • Average revenue per account
  • LVT-to-CAC ratio
  • And more
https://giphy.com/gifs/cbs-funny-mad-l3q2XnJo1OVj2pgmQ
Warning; Tracking the right data for your SAAS business may inspire irrational doses of confidence and excitement

Only when you look at the most granular (and important) metrics, will you be able to see the bigger picture of your SAAS business. Therefore, you can make data-driven decisions that improve your marketing funnel. 

The best way to do this is by working with an experienced CRM expert, preferably on a proven platform like Hubspot. 

Once the CRM expert fully configures your account, you can invest in growth in a way that is primed for optimization and sales. 

#2 – Content Marketing

social media visual platform youtube

If there is one thing that all SAAS companies seem to invest heavily in – it’s content marketing. 

And there’s good reasons why. SAAS companies that utilize content marketing report 30% higher growth rates while it costs them 62% less than traditional marketing. 

Content marketing doesn’t refer to the copy on your homepage or the landing pages that you may be A/B testing. 

Content marketing is the process of creating, and scaling, content that is aimed to educate prospects, nurture leads, and retain customers. 

This in turn creates awareness, trust, and eventually, sales and brand loyalty. 

Content marketing is a vast umbrella that refers to the publishing of many different types of content. This includes, but is not limited to…

  • Blog posts
  • FAQs
  • Webinars
  • Instagram photos
  • YouTube videos
  • Emails
  • Tik Tok videos
  • Tweets
  • And more

But to get the most out of your content marketing, you need to go in with a fine-tuned strategy.  This means doing the right research, setting concrete goals, analyzing the data, and iterating where necessary.

While the initial response for most SAAS companies is to invest in SEO, success can be found in other platforms.

For example, while Hubspot is renowned for their world-class SEO strategy, they also launched the Hubspot Marketing YouTube channel that has over 220K subscribers….

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… and generates over 380K views per month.

SAAS hubspot marketing strategy

Or how Elementor (SAAS website builder) has focused heavily on Instagram. 

SAAS with Elementor and using IG for marketing

On IG, Elementor posts helpful content for business owners – some of which has to do with building websites, but other more general tips as well.

Overall, by investing into content marketing you will be able to establish a solid brand identity, attract high-quality leads, and lower your churn rate very quickly.

#3 – SEO

SEO isn’t as easy as it used to be, but that’s because it arguably has the best ROI in all digital marketing. Simply put, it’s hard to beat organic traffic that comes to your website on autopilot. 

In fact, nowadays over 80% of consumers do an online search before they make a purchase. By investing in SEO, your SAAS company has the ability to get in front of the customer when it matters most.

But to do SEO right, you can’t just look at it as a way to generate immediate sales. Sure, you need to target transactional keywords that will generate revenue, but SEO is best tackled as an entire funnel in itself – where you target all customers in every part of your their buying journey.

Let’s take a look at Clickup – a project management SAAS company.

Google Analytics for improving your SAAS marketing

As you can see, Clickup has a DR of 84, has generated 3.1 million backlinks, and gets over 1.1 million organic visitors per month. It’s clear that Clickup has invested heavily into SEO over the years.

But what’s so interesting about Clickup is their dedication to creating a wide-range of content. They target transactional obvious keywords like ‘team management software’ and ‘project management template’.

Organic keywords to improve SAAS marketing strategy

But they also target top-of-the-funnel keywords like ‘team building activities’ and ‘calendar on Google doc’.

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These keywords result in traffic, and while the traffic probably doesn’t convert as highly as the more ‘transactional’ keywords, they still make searchers aware of their product, therefore bringing more qualified traffic down their funnel.

Also, Clickup has a cheeky SEO strategy where they target branded competitor keywords – often quite aggressively.

SEO strategy for SAAS marketing improvement

You can see in the screenshot above that they are targeting the ‘vs’ keyword in regards to their competitors. This means Clickup can influence people who are comparing two competitor products, like Asana, Monday, Evernote, Airtable, and more.

Clickup are masters of creating awareness through SEO, and because of the evergreen nature of SEO, the traffic will keep coming in on autopilot day after day. 

#4 – Email marketing

Email Marketing for SAAS companies

For SAAS companies, email marketing should be at the core of all your marketing strategies. 

This is because email marketing is the best way to directly engage your customers, and it can deliver a staggering ROI of $36 for every $1 spent.  

Email marketing helps you accomplish two things…

  1. It helps you convert leads who are already signed up to your email list
  2. It helps you nurture customers who have already converted

But while most SAAS companies have an email marketing strategy, few are taking full advantage of the power of email marketing tools.

For starters, to explode your conversation rate, you need to have an email onboarding sequence. The goal of this sequence is to educate leads about the benefits of your product, while gently pushing them to sign up. In general, this sequence should be 4-7 emails spread over the course of a few weeks.  

https://giphy.com/gifs/dog-shiba-inu-typing-mCRJDo24UvJMA

The best way to optimize your sequence is by testing different variations. Simply create a hypothesis and run a test to see if your hypothesis is correct. Then, run A/B tests to see which copy, headlines, buttons, and images, help to deliver the best overall conversion rates. 

And for existing customers, your goal should be to create so much value for them that they could never dream of leaving your platform.

Be sure to share tips and tricks with them that not only help them get the most out of the software, but that also helps with other problems they are trying to overcome – both in their work and personal life.

Simply put, the more value you create in your email marketing – the more loyal your customers will be to your brand. 

#5 – Branding, messaging, and positioning

brand awareness and positioning is crucial for SAAS marketing

How much time is your SAAS company putting into branding?

How about its overall positioning? 

These are things that are often overlooked by SAAS companies as theytend to focus on acquisition, sales, and metric-driven growth. 

But given the competition in the field, focusing on branding and positioning can provide tremendous advantages.

The goal is to distinguish yourself from your competitors. This can be done by practical means (creating a special offer, or USP) or by emotional means (slogans, colors, animations, etc). 

Either way, the goal is to create more powerful connections with your customer base. 

Be sure that your USP is unique, well-crafted, and immediately identifiable. By doing this you will help further distinguish your brand from your competitors, and create a more unique value proposition for prospective leads. 

Another way to do this is by focusing on your positioning and pricing. 

Are you moving upmarket? Aka, have you implemented an ‘enterprise’ subscription option?

Are you moving downmarket? Aka, are you offering a ‘freemium’ option?

By putting your brand first, you’ll be able to distinguish yourself in the market, and by testing out different price points and subscription offerings, you’ll be able to cast a wider net and increase your monthly revenue. 

SAAS marketing strategies FAQs

What is SAAS content marketing?

SAAS content marketing is the process of strategizing, executing, and measuring a content marketing campaign for a SAAS business. Content marketing can help all kinds of businesses grow, but it’s considered especially important for SAAS companies to invest heavily into it so they can educate, and grow, their user base.

What are some SAAS marketing channels?

The three most common are probably content marketing, SEO, and email marketing. These create the trifecta of SAAS marketing, and should be at the top of any SAAS company’s priority list. From there, be sure to look into social media channels such as Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube.

What are the top SAAS marketing strategies?

Some of the top SAAS marketing strategies are very well known – such as content marketing, SEO, and email marketing. 

But one of the most effective (and misunderstood) SAAS marketing strategies is tracking, measuring, and analyzing your data correctly – preferably in a CRM like Hubspot. By doing this you will be able to grow your SAAS company smarter, and optimize every step of your funnel one part at a time.

Final thoughts on SAAS marketing

As SAAS has gotten more competitive, coming up with a SAAS marketing strategy is more important than ever. 

By investing in content marketing, SEO, email marketing, and your positioning, you’ll be able to generate new brand awareness, and grow faster than ever before.

If your SAAS business is looking to explode its growth by working with a proven SAAS agency, be sure to reach out to a First Page Digital Strategist today. The call is 100% free, and we’ll show you how we can help take your brand to the top of the SAAS world. 

Improve SEO for your small business with social media

Posted on by Arran Saunders

Does social media affect SEO? We are going to answer this question in this post. It’s no mystery that social media is now one of the main ways almost all businesses market themselves to their ideal audience. However, many fail to comprehend how far-reaching social media marketing can be, and its impact on SEO. By employing a strong and consistent social media strategy, you can affect beyond just what your followers may see.

When it comes to SEO and your ranking, your social media successes may or may not have a direct effect. Yet, a highly successful social media presence will still lend many unexpected benefits to your business.

Getting your website’s traffic to increase and taking over the SERPs is crucial for your business. To trigger exponential growth is sometimes just a matter of investing in a well-formulated social media strategy. Here, we will discuss certain techniques you can use to elevate your SEO results.

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Does social media affect SEO Results?

Your posts on social media will not affect SEO ranking factors like page loading speeds or backlinks. Still, though, it doesn’t mean that the energy you put into these platforms isn’t helping you out on Google. Far from it! Let’s look at these specific advantages of how SEO is impacted by social media. Then you can commit to taking your social media game to the next level.

How does social media with SEO grow your web traffic?

Grow SEO and web traffic using social media

The whole point of employing SEO strategies is to elevate your brand’s image and exposure value in places like Google. However, a similarly innovative approach to social media can lead to just as powerful results.

High-quality and keyword-focused content should keep your viewers educated and entertained. It’s only a matter of time before website visitors go out of their way to share your content with others. As this happens, it’ll be plain to see how significantly this will boost your web traffic and overall customer conversions.

Try to keep a social media content calendar. Doing this will ensure that people will keep looking at your social media profiles and website for a long time. 

Can social media help to destroy competition in the SERP?

Landing on the first page of Google is what it means to have a fully optimized and successful SEO campaign. If you achieve this, incredible amounts of new and organic traffic to your website should become the norm.

Similarly, ideally optimized social media pages and profiles can help you rank higher up, too. Why? It’s because these pages will appear in addition to your official website when someone searches for your brand.

Once potential customers see this, they’ll be pleased to have so many options to understand exactly what your business does. They now will spend time scrolling through your social media pages. Soon they’ll recognize that your brand commands both authority and personality.

How can connect with more engaged consumers on social impact SEO?

It’s almost unbelievable just how staggering the amount of web traffic your company can get from a well-planned and implemented social media campaign.

All it requires is a writing style that speaks to your ideal customer. In addition, with highly engaging content that also speaks to their needs. With these two things, you’ll practically have your content spreading itself!

What does this actually do for you in terms of SEO, though? It’s pretty simple: the more people you get to your website via social media directly affects how your website ranks.

You need to be the clear choice compared to your competitors on social media. Then you can ensure that your soon-to-be customers not only read your posts, but share them too! This will most certainly make your business appear higher on the SERP.

Does social media improve local SEO?

With how far-reaching the internet is, it’s sometimes a bit too easy to forget about potential local customers. And, to properly reach them, you must do so specifically with your SEO techniques. With content that grabs their attention, you can easily bring more consumers to your online shops or even actual stores.

That being said, your social media marketing can have an even more significant effect by influencing people. They will spread the word about your business on any number of places like Facebook or Instagram. When this happens, your business’s success will point to it as the one that provides the most benefits.

Additionally, NAP data is yet another big factor to consider with search engine optimization. Maintaining active and engaged social media profiles helps keep important business info updated wherever it happens to be online. Doing so is certain to boost your results on Google.

How do the top social sites benefit SEO?

How top social media sites benefit SEO

It’s not an exaggeration to say that social media dominates billions of people’s daily lives. Remember, there’s no shortage of social media platforms to reach your ideal audience. You must know what’s the best social media app to air your SEO strategy is imperative for your success online.

Facebook

Get this: Facebook alone has a mind-bending 2.9 billion monthly active users as of 2021. That’s almost half the world’s population!

And you know what’s the best thing about this unbelievable number of people? It means that literally every single business – even the most obscure – has a target market just waiting to hear about its products or services.

Facebook does make it super easy for companies to deliver different content forms. It also provides a platform that helps keep things incredibly engaging with likes, comments, and shares. 

Also, Google is always watching. Google makes it a point to crawl all posts on Facebook. This also means keyword-focused posts will show up in the SERP.

Twitter

Twitter and Facebook have both been around for a long time. However, they both still stand as two of the more important platforms to take advantage of. Why? They allow for quite a few media formats to be shared. This makes the experience amazing on either end of the experience.

You can do just about anything, including text posts, post pictures, showing off videos and gathering info with polls. And with all of these, you can shrewdly produce engaging content to grow your audience. In addition, you can find out who exactly is itching to take part in what your company offers.

Keep a clear and concise bio with obvious contact information. Remember to dive into Twitter with a solid plan that will lead to business growth. You can be assured then that you can blow your competitors out of the water.

Instagram

There isn’t a much better place to show off who your brand truly is on this image-driven platform. Consumers are no longer satisfied simply buying from faceless companies; they all want to know exactly who they’re supporting with their hard-earned money!

And you know where people go to learn about any business, including yours? Eight times out of ten, the first stop is good ol’ Instagram. So, it stands that your company profile should be as supportive of your goals as possible.

Engaging, regular content, along with key hashtag usage, will get your ideal customers to focus on what your business offers.

Pinterest

Even though Pinterest is also very image-focused, it’s really not just another Instagram; not at all!

Yes, there are community engagement factors like comments and sharing capabilities. However, Pinterest’s actual purpose is more like a search engine for pictures and visual ideas.

There are well over two billion searches performed on Pinterest every single month. Its users almost always use it to gather inspiration for personal projects or to research products they’re looking to purchase.

Also, all of the images are used by Google in their crawling and indexing efforts. So, it’s an easy method you can take advantage of in your overall SEO strategy. Implement this to take over the SERPs for your company’s niche.

YouTube

High-speed internet connection and smartphone possession is near-ubiquitous, which has made video-based marketing a mainstay. It’s actually been shown that around 90% of customers prefer that the companies they follow make more videos.

Do you know why? It’s due to how everyone’s attention spans are getting shorter daily. Instead of spending minutes plowing through an informational article, people would rather watch a short video on their phone.

Youtube is the main video-sharing platform around, with billions of hours of content streamed every single day. Remember to create highly engaging video content on YouTube. This will increase your brand awareness and launch you to the top of the SERPs.

What are some quick tips for getting social media impact on SEO?

Tips on improving SEO using social media

Now that we understand how social media helps your business grow, it’s time to look at specific things you can do to apply these concepts. Ready to get your SEO performance to the next level? Then follow these clever strategies:

How does providing top-notch content on social help SEO?

Sharing content is pointless if it doesn’t speak to your target market. Think about it like this: What do you think would happen if you give your audience tons of memes when they truly desire in-depth articles about your products or services and how they can benefit them?

Take the time to research your customer base and attune yourself with the kind of content that will resonate with them. Only then can you create a content marketing strategy that will impact them.

Remember: As you develop blog posts, other content like YouTube videos and infographics can easily be incorporated into them as potent backlinks that will further enhance your business’s SEO. Plus, they’re simple & powerful “microcontent” you can share with your audience.

Does cross-promotion across channels help?

When potential customers see your brand just about everywhere they go, they’re more likely to perceive your company as one that commands authority and quality. This is one of the reasons why the biggest brands have the easiest sales, and why it’s important to appear on every platform possible.

Studies and research have found that most sales require a minimum of eight interactions with a brand before a purchase is actually made. Thus, cross-promotion of your content on social media is a simple way to get those interactions to happen.

Doing so not only can give further use to the painstakingly crafted blogs you’ve created, but it will simultaneously drive more potential consumers to your site.

If that’s not enough, being active on as many platforms as possible exposes your brand to new followers, as many people have different preferences on which social media sites they like to spend their time.

So, if you’ve got a successful Instagram account, encourage your followers to head over to your TikTok for more awesome content. The social media impact on SEO will be huge!

Why should you focus on shareable content?

If you’re gone through all the effort to make high-quality content on your website, but have neglected to make it easily shareable, you’re missing out on SEO gains and potential sales.

At the very least, you should provide readily available share buttons for social media, for those who want to share your insightful advice with friends online.

However, it goes beyond just doing this. If you want someone to share your content with the world, sometimes you have to tell them to do so explicitly. As you may already know, this is called a Call to Action, and your most loyal fans will almost certainly respond to these requests.

What are some go-to content designs that drive engagement? Think checklists, polls, contests, and free giveaways.

How can consistent social media profiles help with SEO?

To get social media impact on SEO, you need to think from an “omnichannel” mindset. This means that each and every single one of your separate profiles must be moving in unison, simultaneously working towards the same goal.

And perhaps most importantly, no matter what images or messages you provide to your potential customers, it must be simple and non-fuss to engage with your company’s online presence. If all of your profiles have different names and inconsistent content, don’t be surprised if your target market fails to understand exactly what your brand actually provides.

By keeping your channels in line with one another, you drive more engagement through a clear business identity, which will lead to further reach on search engine results pages.

Why are positive brand-customer relationships needed on social media for SEO?

Customers are way more likely to become return customers when they believe your company is most interested in providing them with the best products and services, rather than just taking their money and running with it.

It’s tough to build this level of trust and credibility, but entirely possible. And, one of the easiest ways to begin doing so is through a well-planned social media marketing strategy that fosters this kind of relationship. If you’ve already made an effort to find and understand your followers’ pain points, then taking real action to solve those issues will develop a symbiotic relationship between your brand and them.

Done alongside everything we’ve already mentioned, like showing genuine personality and being transparent with intentions, you’ll elevate your brand’s reputation, and your SEO performance will follow suit.

What next for you and your brand?

Learn! Whether you have done social media or SEO for a while (or little), we suggest you learn as much as you can about marketing and digital marketing in general. This will improve your social media impact on SEO.

We believe that this blog post can help you get the gist of the link between social media and SEO. However, we know the more you put this into practice, the more your social will influence your SEO SERP results.

Saying that we invite you to learn more from our recent blog posts on digital marketing:

Perfect Your Email Marketing Strategy Now
What are the top PPC ideas you ought to know?
Social Media Strategies: Successful Ones You Can Learn From
Helpful Content Tips: Get Noticed Before the Competition
6 Easy Digital Marketing Hacks to Increase Your Leads

Your marketing team may be busy with ongoing campaigns. If this is the case they may not have the time to work the magic of social media for SEO.

If this is the case, we encourage you to review some of our strategic digital marketing services:

SEO for your business to drive qualified leads
Social media management for improved brand awareness
Linkbuilding to drive organic traffic to your website
Top converting landing pages to convert your leads
Email marketing campaigns to bring in referrals

Of course, more than anything, we would love to help you succeed in business and solve your social media or SEO problems. If you have any questions, please contact one of our expert digital strategists. It is obligation free, and we would love to chat with you.

Connect with the experts

Do you want social media impact on SEO? That’s correct! Through increased customer outreach online and elevated brand awareness, it all serves to bring more traffic to your website and push you up in the rankings.

Don’t waste a moment longer! Let’s take your social media marketing up a few notches to achieve your business goals. With First Page Hong Kong, you’ll have dozens of digital marketing experts at your beck and call, ready to help you like they’ve helped thousands of other businesses.

To learn more, contact our talented team, and we can answer any questions you may have about how social media will benefit your business.

Get in touch

FAQs on social media and SEO

What is SEO for social media?

The use of social media networks to raise the rankings of websites is a sort of optimization. Social media optimization is the process of maximizing the potential for your social media accounts to increase visitors to your website.

How is social media used for SEO?

SEO can benefit from social media in the following ways: Traffic generation – social media promotes user engagement on your website by exposing users to your content. Profile exposure in result pages – There is a good probability that consumers using branded keywords will see your social media profile on result sites. Increasing your audience with social media: If you use social media frequently enough, people will start to notice your content. High traffic from expanded content reach will improve your ranking. Improve local SEO ranking – Google will give you more credibility if your NAP information is consistent across all social media sites.

Is social media a search engine?

Nowadays, individuals utilize social media platforms in addition to search engines like Google and Bing to find information.

Succeed With Small Business SEO Now

Posted on by Stephanie Wong

Small business SEO is a key to not just surviving but thriving as a business. With tough competition, one must use every resource available to be found by potential customers. This is why search engine optimization (SEO) is so useful and effective. It’s one of the most proven digital marketing techniques you can ever make use of. We offer these small business SEO tips to help your business grow.

SEO is all about getting more visibility with your target market for your business. By doing so, you can increase website visitors and sales. Just as well, SEO is generally one of the cheapest ways to drive greater attention to your offerings.

With small business SEO, impactful results from an SEO campaign are only possible with the most up-to-date methods. As such, in this article, we’ll divulge to you what happens to be the SEO latest trends. You can then best understand what changes you should make to best fuel success.

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Why Do Small Businesses Need SEO?

Why do small businesses need SEO

You want your website to be high up in the search engine results pages (SERP). Why, because you are more likely to be found by customers. This applies, whether online or in-person. As such, your chance of making sales that lead to insane business growth increases as well.

Your competitors are more than likely employing their own SEO strategies. By using the latest techniques, you can stand above the competition. Then you will capture the consumers’ attention whenever they search for what you offer over your competition.

Small business SEO tips to increase your organic traffic

There’s almost no limit to how much your small business can benefit from SEO. Remember, there are also just as many technical issues to worry about. As such, it’s not exactly easy to know where to invest your time and money best. The following tips will help you avoid any confusion and get right to dominating your competition.

Should you reanalyze your keywords?

Yes, of course! Keywords are the cornerstone of search engine optimization. You must both know and utilize the main words your target market uses. We are referring to what they search for when looking for products and services your business offers.

You may have already done some keyword research in the past. Maybe even you made it a point to use them in your website’s content. Still, though, it’s still necessary to consistently review these terms and only use what matches current consumer behavior. The SME business climate constantly changes. As such, you must evolve with it by using the most relevant keywords to your potential customers.

How should you power up your blogs and product pages?

Website content that revolves around top-notch SEO practices will drive that content to the top of the SERP. Make sure you have a blog that delivers high-quality and highly sought-after information. If you have done that, you’re doing exactly what needs to be done online to capture the most attention.

Doing so is what most satisfies the powers that be with Google. Your content will also show your customers that you’re a leader in your industry. This is exactly what you want from small business SEO.

Customers always prefer to spend their money with people and businesses they find trustworthy. Your target audience will usually spend a decent amount of time researching your brand before committing to a purchase.

Launching a blog is no small endeavor, though. Once you’ve got one, it’s incredibly important that it’s updated consistently so that you get the most SEO benefits. Make it a point to create a content schedule and post the stuff that most appeals to your ideal customer.

Should small business SEO take URLs into account?

Yes, URLs are super important. It’s a simple thing to overlook, but the importance of a clear and concise URL structure shouldn’t be underestimated. It is suggested not to have a mess of random letters and numbers as your URL. You can easily make all of your URLs keyword-focused mini SEO powerhouses. It’ll also help new customers know what each webpage is about too. Customers will be more likely to decide your site is where their question will be answered. They will also believe that product they desire will be sold is on your site.

To maximize your site’s traffic, ensure your URL is keyword-focused to enhance those click-through rates.

Can highly engaging media help with small business SEO?

Humans are very visual. So, yes, engaging media will help. Generating interest for new products and services is tough. Attention spans are shorter than they’ve ever been. Fantastically written blog posts and product descriptions are no longer enough to convince a potential customer to buy.

This is why featuring highly engaging images or videos will help grab attention.

Great media can help keep new users on your website for longer periods. As such, the SEO benefits can be enormous. Lower bounce rates (people leaving your site almost instantly) lead to higher page rankings, which means higher sales. Finally, make sure all of your file names, image alt text, and captions are keyword-centric. This will help drive more customers to your site as well.

Should you build upon internal linking?

Helping Google better comprehend the structure of your site through better internal linking is a must, too. If any of your pages fail to include any links whatsoever, it will not rank well in search results.

This is one of the worst things that can happen SEO-wise. It means Google can’t index your page, and therefore potential customers will never land on it. In addition, having internal links will also help new customers move around your website.

Internal links are the perfect method for providing more relevant information on your own website. You can have internal links to product pages or other blog posts. This, in turn, ensures customers spend more time on your site.

Always try to choose a couple of internal links and add them to your posts. This is one of those great small business SEO tips that will rev up your results.

As the opposite of internal links, outbound links send readers to sites outside of your own. It may seem counterintuitive to send potential customers away from your own website. Why? Well, when you’re trying to get them to buy from you, you are sending them away! However, it’s actually a great method for elevating your brand’s authority.

How so? You see, the point isn’t necessarily to send customers away. It is to craft blogs that reference the most recent news in your industry. Outbound links then are used to show support for your business’s ideas or opinions. This causes customers to perceive your brand as more informed and worth trusting.

Also, these outbound links can be used to build worthwhile relationships with similar organizations in your industry. By providing potential customers or supporters to their homepages, they’ll eventually do the same for your company in the future.

Should you make sharing on social media simple?

Make social media sharing easy for better SEO

This is one of those key small business SEO tips. Every blog has are always buttons where you can share said content directly to your social media profile.

Doing the same on your site’s content is a savvy move. It will ensure that when your most avid fans can share information about your products, they can with ease.

The more traction your brand gets on social media, the more your SEO results will improve. However, it’s important to take note of the proper placement of these buttons. You never want them to be an annoyance to your potential customers! Keep them readily available but discreetly out of the way. You should only provide social buttons that are most relevant to your ideal audience.

Technical Tips for Driving Organic Traffic SEO

It’s common to only consider on-page SEO strategies for rising up in the SERP. However, the more behind-the-scenes technical stuff is just as important to stay on top of.

Is it important to create a mobile-friendly website?

It’s no mystery that modern online shoppers do most of their online browsing via their smartphone devices. As such, having a mobile-friendly website is nothing short of absolutely necessary to take advantage of today’s SEO trends.

The best way to do this? Make your user’s experience easy. Don’t use complicated fonts, and develop a site menu that’s as clear as possible. Last but not least, you’ll need super fast loading speeds so that your potential customers don’t click away.

Don’t make them suffer through a shoddily built mobile website! Keep your design up-to-date and watch your SEO performance soar.

Should you use keywords in meta titles and descriptions

Keywords are super essential. Small business SEO relies on keywords more than anything! Keywords in your meta titles and descriptions throughout your site will maximize your reach on search.

It may not be exactly outright useful for your customers. Keywords are extra information that Google’s algorithms appreciate. It is appreciated as Google scours your content to understand what it’s actually about.

Additionally, these titles and descriptions do show up in search results. As such, they’ll be instrumental in informing consumers on what to look forward to when perusing your products.

160 characters are what you’re limited to. This can feel a bit cramped for space, right? Still, you can still craft a compelling description that convinces more click-throughs.

Must you cut down the page loading times for small business SEO?

As far as small business SEO tips go, page loading time is crucial. It is crucial to hitting page one on Google. Believe it or not, it’s actually a direct ranking factor! Think about it: When was the last time you spent time waiting for a website’s slow page to load? Exactly. Slow and steady may win the race, but not in this instance!

What can you do to quicken your page speed? First, if your website is based on WordPress like millions of others, it’s sometimes just simple. It could be a matter of getting rid of unnecessary plugins and code to hasten things along.

Fully optimizing your images for size and format (like PNG) will go a long way, too.

Why is increasing customer engagement with Google My Business important?

Google My Business (GMB) is a free tool. As a tool, it allows brands to fully control how their company is shown on other Google services like Maps. So, optimizing is yet another crucial factor in boosting those sales!

Keeping this profile updated is easy. As a small business SEO tip, it also ensures that local consumers have a great time interacting with your brand. Why? Because it helps them to have your most accurate basic information, like contact info and hours of operation.

In addition, photos and raving customer reviews can be highlighted to get your company to appear in even more searches.

Is using Google Analytics a wise small business SEO tip?

Small businesses should use Google Analytics to help with SEO

Yes, it is! SEO, when properly utilized, can be incredibly rewarding. Unfortunately, it’s not always clear exactly how and what your efforts are really doing.

Google Analytics provides a simple solution to tracking your website’s SEO metrics.

With this tool and the data, a small business can learn so much. You can view incoming traffic behavior and how individuals are clicking through your site’s pages. One can also see what searches they may have performed while there.

It’ll also show you what your bounce rate happens to be. Taking note of it will make one thing instantly clear to you. Are new visitors leave your landing page without doing anything else? Then there is a problem. it’s likely a signal your content isn’t hitting the mark for them.

How important is it to eradicate duplicate content?

All websites grow with more and more content. As such, it’s easy to end up with sentences or even whole pages that are duplicated.

You might not think this is an issue, but Google has other ideas. Google’s site crawler gets stalled with duplicate content. It can’t figure out which version of content is supposed to be shown in search results. As a result, it scraps both of them.

This means that instead of having twice the content show up in searches, you end up with none! Talk about a negative impact on your SEO.

Thankfully, the Google Search Console can help you find said duplicate content and fix it to rank higher up.

Like duplicate content, broken links can appear suddenly on your web pages like other pages update (both internally and externally). As a small business SEO tip, broken links will eventually cause issues with your SEO. Your website visitors will keep finding informational dead ends and click off your site.

Don’t just let these links sit around causing havoc. Find them and either fix them or get rid of them outright. Always double-check their validity, too, both before and after, to reduce the number of broken links.

FAQs for small business SEO

Is SEO good for a small business?

SEO is crucial if you’re a small business attempting to attract local clients since it helps them locate you first. People learn more about a local small company online than anyplace else in 97 percent of cases.

What is local SEO for a small business?

The practice of optimizing your website through search engine optimization (SEO) increases the likelihood that it will be found by users who enter relevant search phrases for your company. Similar to regular SEO, local SEO puts a specific emphasis on local keyword words.

How does local SEO help to grow small businesses?

Local SEO improves conversion rates by generating focused visitors and raising them. Users that are looking for more local content have a better chance of converting.

Final thoughts

SEO is the best bet for small businesses to grab their customers’ attention. It simply doesn’t happen overnight, though!

Getting your company to smash its goals and rise up past your competition is what we want for you. These small business SEO tips will help you get there.

We warn all small businesses that getting SEO to work well is a time-consuming activity. If you are a time-strapped business owner, let us help you with your SEO. We invite you to look over our SEO services.

At First Page Hong Kong, our world-class team of experts knows exactly how to help you implement such a strategy. Get in touch with any of our friendly digital marketing experts and learn why businesses in Hong Kong look to us for SEO.

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15 Reasons Why Digital Marketing helps your bottom line

Posted on by Ishmael Os

Achieving success as a small business is no easy feat, especially when you have to compete with some of the biggest brands out there. So, if you want to have the greatest chance of making it, a well-planned and well-implemented digital marketing strategy is going to be pivotal. How marketing helps business is well known. When we start to think of revenues, sales, and leads, we are thinking of bottom line marketing.

Marketing online is available to everyone no matter the size of your company’s budget. All one needs is an internet connection, and you have a direct path to engaging your customers and convincing them you’re worth doing business with.

Not sure how to get started? No problem! First Page’s world-class team has literally gotten thousands of small businesses like yours to reach their most profitable potential. With that in mind, let’s look at just a few of the best digital marketing tips you can implement to achieve the same.

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Why should your small business use digital marketing?

Why your small business needs digital marketing

It’s amazing how much we take the internet for granted these days. If there’s something we need, all we have to do is search for it, and we’ll find something relevant in seconds. That’s why if you’re not already making use of digital marketing for your small business, you’re missing out on quite a lot of revenue, seeing as how 51% of online shoppers first use a search engine like Google to research what they plan to buy.

How marketing helps business is simple. It is through digital marketing and it is all about increasing your company’s visibility in SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages) because when this happens, tons more of your ideal customers start to flood into your website. All you need is a strategy that outstrips your competitors, and your business will begin to grow like never before.

No more tallying any further! Here are the main reasons why your small business will profit from a competent digital marketing campaign.

1. What is budget-friendly marketing?

Most small businesses don’t have millions to spend on traditional marketing strategies like TV, radio, newspapers, or the like.

Comparatively, using a digital marketing strategy is much lower in cost and tends to return much better and far superior results for small businesses. Why? Because these laser-focused strategies have the potential to create a huge ROI, the likes of which your company may have yet to see.

Don’t waste your time and money with radio ads that have impossible-to-track results. Using digital marketing is the better approach, as a campaign can easily be modified, and sales are never a vague metric.

2. Can you get more conversions for less cash?

Yes, it is possible! Your company’s conversion rate directly influences your overall ROI. So, if you can level up said rates with minimal financial investment, you’d best believe your returns on investment will go through the roof. That’s the power of a specifically targeted digital marketing strategy.

Here’s an example: Using a data-driven Google Ads campaign, you can follow and reach your target customers at each point along their way to a final purchase. That way, it’s entirely possible to accomplish not just brand awareness across your market but create instant conversions.

As well, when digital marketing strategies like SEO are employed in the long term, your brand can rise through the ranking pages and leave your competition in the dust. Then, with your increased visibility, conversion rates like you’ve always wanted and beyond can be had.

3. Can you level the playing field?

Yes, you can! Even if your business lacks the resources of the biggest brands in your industry, it doesn’t mean you have to let them win. How marketing helps business is by making the playing field level. It’s even possible to make a big impact in digital marketing and beat them at their own game, and claim your piece of the pie.

Clever organizations know that digital marketing is perhaps the greatest promotion strategy because it allows them to pinpoint their ideal customers and convince them to buy with them.

Investing in an engaging social media marketing campaign or utilizing local SEO isn’t just for online businesses either. If you’ve got an actual storefront with tangible products, it’s all the more reason to expand your reach and bring more customers into your doors.

4. How can you send revenue through the roof?

Increase small business revenue with digital marketing

Generating revenue is the lifeblood of any business. Without it, doors can become shuttered faster than you’d know it. And as more and more customers opt to shop online, achieving consistent revenue increases without some form of digital marketing in place will be challenging to say the least.

However, it’s also now easier than ever to make use of the newest technologies and techniques like video campaigns, chatbots, micro-influencer marketing, and so on to persuade consumers to consider your company’s offerings.

Keep in mind, though, those same big brands in your industry are looking at those exact same things. That’s why alongside our team at First Page Hong Kong, you’ll never have to worry about being left behind and leaving profits on the table.

5. Want to engage your ideal customers?

Digital marketing isn’t magic, even if it feels that way sometimes. How marketing helps business is by focusing on ideal customers. All it does is help up-and-coming brands increase sales by reaching and converting their perfect customer through increased brand awareness. A fully optimized marketing campaign will help achieve this, but targeting an audience isn’t as simple as choosing a demographic.

Research is necessary, first and foremost! And not just any knee-deep level of research. Not only must you discover who your ideal customer base is, but you need to internalize their biggest pain points and show how what your company offers in the solution they’ve been seeking all along.

Of course, this will include basic demographic information like age, gender, and interests, but you must also consider the best type of content that will get them to engage with your brand actively. Once this is successfully done, you have a sure-fire method of gaining new customers.

Our society, especially over the last couple of decades, has been undergoing incredibly rapid changes. Likewise, consumer behavior has been changing in tandem, and it’s something your company must stay aware of to best shape your message today.

Fortunately, staying current is relatively easy when keeping up with the latest digital marketing strategies. Ever notice how you and just about everyone you know shops online via their smartphones? Then, it’s likely a good idea to have a mobile-friendly website to accommodate these behaviors.

Personal information is more heavily guarded than ever, too. This means communicating to concerned consumers exactly how you plan to use their data in an effective manner of developing public trust for your brand.

7. Should you elevate your brand awareness?

Yes, most definitely! You likely have already heard, “It’s not what you know, but who you know.” But, even more so it’s, “Who knows you.” It’s the same for business! People simply don’t purchase from companies they don’t know and do not trust yet. How marketing helps business is by building trust with prospective customers.

Having a digital marketing strategy helps get your business out there so that potential customers learn why your brand is different from others. Whether it’s faster shipping or the best products, everyone must know exactly what your brand provides and why they should be spending more time on your website.

8. Is it worth promoting a small business with digital marketing?

Yes most definitely! Now that you understand why digital marketing can be such an incredible asset to your small business, it’s time to see the exact ideas that will bring you the most success. How marketing helps business? Here are a few of the most common and advantageous marketing strategies you can implement:

9. Can social media marketing help your business?

Social media marketing for small businesses

Billions upon billions of people spend hours of their day on social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok, and you can make use of this fact to market your business. However, since just about everyone else is doing the same, you can’t just make mediocre content and expect stellar results. 

Your content, and the way you reach out to your potential customers, must all work in unison to drive them to your website and influence them to buy your products or services. And, it’s all a lot easier said than done.

However, if you understand what makes your customers tick (remember all that research?), you can connect with them on another level, capture their attention, and get them to take action.

10. Should you try growth hacking?

With how crowded the online landscape has become, brands hoping to reach the next level of success often have to resort to more experimental techniques. This is the realm of “growth hacking,” and it’s a relatively new field that shares quite a bit with digital marketing but focuses more on “hitting gold” rather than a traditional steady marketing approach.

Examples include detailed remarketing campaigns and exit popups, among many others.

11. How about the effectiveness of affiliate marketing?

Affiliate marketing is a digital marketing strategy where you pay participants in your campaign a small commission when they send converting customers your way. When done effectively, you’d be surprised how quickly it can escalate your business. 

Doing it well is the rub, of course. And to properly do so, you have first to attract potential partners who can reach your ideal customers. For instance, one type of affiliate marketing involves having other people create freelance SEO campaigns to build interest and sales for your products. Another is requesting popular online influencers to speak to their audience about what you do.

And while you do have to pay out for this tactic constantly, the similarly constant sales conversions will far outweigh such a comparatively tiny sum.

12. What about lead generation for my business?

Small business lead generation with digital marketing

Getting hot leads is one of the ultimate goals of all businesses. But, it can only be done once your digital marketing strategy is working in sync with the exact objective of your company.

A fundamental understanding of your target market is essential, but you also have to have a method for capturing their attention. For example, a company that sells a muscle recovery drink might spend lots of time on Facebook groups catering to physically active individuals.

Alternatively, any brick-and-mortar business that thrives off local traffic must prioritize responding to online reviews, as even negative ones are an opportunity to demonstrate your ability to listen and improve based on feedback. 

13. Should I use content marketing?

Setting aside the time to formulate a solid content marketing strategy is an excellent way to ensure customers spend more time on your website and get to know your company. Whether it be blog posts, infographics, YouTube videos, or podcast appearances, any or all of them can help your brand achieve prominence in your sector.

Surprisingly, although content marketing is extremely popular, almost two-thirds of all businesses fail to have any sort of content marketing plan in place. That is the perfect opportunity for your brand, as there’s the chance you can easily surpass your competitors in this realm.

We live in a world where businesses who maintain a blog get 434% more web traffic than those who don’t. Never overlook the power of content marketing!  

14. What about paid media like Google Ads?

When it comes to advertising online, it doesn’t get any bigger than Google Ads, with Google Display Network ads reaching more than 90% of internet users all by themselves. Despite this fact, most small businesses think paying for online advertising is too cost-prohibitive for them.

The reality, though, is that most of these companies have likely never taken part in a truly optimized digital marketing campaign. By using real, research-backed methods that prioritize the most effective audience targeting techniques, creating a campaign that returns multiple times what it takes is well within the realm of possibility.

Our First Page Hong Kong team specializes in performing the most comprehensive keyword research to narrow down your ideal target’s language and reach them via modern-minded and cost-effective Google Ads.

15. Is SEO (Search Engine Optimization) good for my business?

The biggest companies may seem like they own a monopoly sometimes, but it certainly isn’t over SEO. Truly, it’s often most effective for small businesses instead, as it assists them in identifying customers, generating leads, and building a website that best serves their users.

Keyword research is where it’s at, though, and it simply cannot be ignored. Knowing what keywords to include in your content is absolutely critical to optimize your website’s pages with words your most relevant customers actually use. This is how your brand increases its visibility in search engine result pages!

Additionally, SEO can serve as the springboard for building your content plan and around launching your brand’s image into the stratosphere.

What you should you do now?

Start learning! As a small business owner we suggest you learn as much as you can about marketing and digital marketing in general.

We believe that this blog post can help you understand how digital marketing helps business. The tips here may not be a cure-all for every small business owner. However, we know the more you put into practice, the more sales you will get.

Saying that, we invite you to learn more from our recent blog posts on digital marketing:

Perfect Your Email Marketing Strategy Now
What are the top PPC ideas you ought to know?
Social Media Strategies: Successful Ones You Can Learn From
Helpful Content Tips: Get Noticed Before the Competition
6 Easy Digital Marketing Hacks to Increase Your Leads

If you are a busy small business owner, you may not have the time you need to do these tactics on your own.

If this is the case, we encourage you to review some of our strategic digital marketing services:

SEO for your business to drive qualified leads
Social media management for improved brand awareness
Linkbuilding to drive organic traffic to your website
Top converting landing pages to convert your leads
Email marketing campaigns to bring in referrals

Of course, more than anything, we would love to help you succeed in digital marketing and drive quality lead growth. If you have any questions, please contact one of our expert digital strategists. It is obligation free, and we would love to chat with you.

Talk with the Experts

Just because you’re a small business doesn’t mean you have to make small moves. These simple marketing ideas are much more powerful than you might expect and can quickly get you to the forefront of your industry.

That being said, a digital marketing campaign will only achieve success if it’s implemented to an incredible standard. You’re in luck though! Because our expert team at First Page successfully operates such campaigns for the world’s biggest businesses each and every day.

Are you ready to experience the life-changing results of digital marketing? Contact us today and learn why we’re thought of as Hong Kong’s leading full-service digital marketing agency.

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12 KEY STEPS YOU NEED TO KNOW TO OPTIMIZE IMAGES FOR SEO EFFECTIVELY

Posted on by Arran Saunders

Images are vital for making your content more accessible, appealing, and engaging for consumers, but they’re critical for SEO.

For starters, they provide crucial additional context to search engines. Second, optimized pictures boost user engagement and search engine rankings by speeding up page loading. You should know the fundamentals of image optimization to provide your brand with the best chance possible of succeeding in the world of SEO.

The act of developing and providing high-quality photographs in the optimal format, size, and resolution to maximize user engagement is known as image optimization. It also entails identifying pictures correctly so that search engine crawlers can read them and comprehend the page’s context.

As of November 2018, pictures took up on average 21% of the entire weight of a web page, according to HTTP Archive. Because photos take up more space on a website than any other component, their size and complexity significantly impact site performance.

When you minimize the size of photos without sacrificing quality, page load speeds increase, and visitors’ experiences improve. According to Aberdeen Group research, a one-second delay in load time results in a 7% loss in conversions, and roughly 40% of users quit a website that takes more than three seconds to load.

Improved user experience and interactions with your site enhance search engine results, increasing customer engagement, conversions, and retention.

Furthermore, since optimized photos take up less server storage space, site backups will be performed faster.

In this article, we teach you how to make sure your images are optimized for SEO.

In order to achieve this, it is imperative to follow the 9 key steps below:

Table of contents

1. Resize Your Photographs First

Resize images for SEO

The size of an image and the size of a file are not the same thing. The dimensions of a picture are image size (e.g., 1024 by 680 pixels). The file size refers to the storage space required on the server (e.g., 350 kilobytes).

Images with better quality and bigger size (typically taken with a professional camera) take longer to load. While they perform well for print reproduction, they must be scaled down to fit the web without sacrificing too much quality.

2. Choose The Appropriate File Format

PNG, JPEG, and GIF are all widely used image formats. Each has its own set of advantages. JPEGs, for example, can be easily uploaded on web pages and are compatible with virtually all devices. In addition to that, JPEGs that are high-resolution really stand out as they are vivid and colorful. Images in the PNG format, meanwhile, don’t lose any detail upon being compressed and the colors still pop as well.

3. Select The Appropriate Compression Rate

When an image is compressed too extensively, the size of the file may become smaller, but the overall quality of the image becomes worse. Picking a low compression rate, on the other hand, enables the picture to retain its quality, but the size of the file remains quite large.

To find out what works best, it is worth experimenting with different file formats and compression rates. Many image-editing programs, including Adobe Photoshop, feature a “save for the web” option that reduces file size while maintaining picture quality.

Below are several alternatives to Photoshop if you don’t have it:

  • Image optimization tools
  • Affinity Photo
  • Pixlr (JPEG optimization)
  • ImageOptim (Mac only)
  • Kraken (bulk compression)
  • Gimp
  • Paint.NET
  • JPEG Mini
  • OptiPNG
  • FileOptimizer
  • Triage
  • Image optimization plugins for WordPress Yoast SEO
  • ShortPixel
  • EWWW Image Optimizer
  • WP Smush
  • TinyPNG
  • ImageRecycle
  • Optimus Image Optimizer

4. Test Speed Optimization

Test website speed after optimizing images

How do you tell whether your website page’s loading speed is fast enough after you’ve optimized your images? To evaluate your site’s performance, use one of the following tools:

  • WebPageTest
  • Pingdom
  • GTmetrix
  • WebWait
  • Google PageSpeed Insights

It is a good idea to review your metrics since your website and content will change regularly.

5. Optimize The Names Of Picture Files

It’s critical to choose the proper file name for your page’s SEO and image search results. To have the maximum SEO impact, it is essential to name every picture file with relevant, descriptive keywords before uploading it.

Target keywords should be the starting point and it is necessary to separate them with hyphens. This is because search engines don’t recognize underscores and won’t be able to “see” the words separately.

File names must make sense to people and search engines alike. For instance, “salon234.jpg” is the original name of a picture of a lady at a hair salon. The file should be renamed to something more descriptive, such as “lady getting her hair cut at the salon.jpg.”

6. Make Use Of Image Alternative Tags

Viewers may understand images, but search engine spiders need more information. Search engines can’t correctly index your picture if you don’t include alternative text.

The alternative text on a website may also help with search engine ranking, even if the pictures don’t load properly. To increase exposure, use brand-relevant terms in this section and remember to stay away from keyword stuffing!

It is also worth providing additional information than what’s in the filename. While there isn’t a specific amount of words, you should strive for 10 to 15 to get your point through.

7. Image Title Optimization Is A Must!

Since the picture title is frequently derived from the file name in WordPress, you may occasionally leave it as it is when uploading images to the platform.

Rename the picture with the required keywords in the same manner as file names if you do not use WordPress or if the title does not describe the image.

When it comes to search engine optimization, image names aren’t as significant as alt text. User engagement is higher when images have descriptive words, so adding something like “purchase now” or “download now” might be a compelling call to action.

8. Include Pictures With Captions Where Appropriate

Unlike file names and alt texts, picture captions may be seen on a website page, even if they don’t directly influence SEO. As a result, they’ll improve the user’s overall experience.

Image captions are popular because they allow viewers to gain a better sense of the entire content. Your bounce rates may rise if you don’t include picture captions, which might harm your ranking on search engines.

9. Make Use Of Exclusive Photos

In general, stock photographs are OK as long as you credit the photographer and give credit where credit is due. Uploading unique photos is beneficial to SEO in the same way that special textual material is.

10. Be Sure Your Wording Matches The Pictures You’re Using

You can aid image search engines by including relevant content on your web page. If there isn’t enough text to explain a concept, describe the image in greater detail.

11. Add Structured Image Data

Adding structured data to your website helps in presenting your photographs as rich results by search engines. Product photos, films, and recipes all have structured data support in Google Images. If your website contains recipes and you contribute structured data to your photos, Google may add a badge to your image indicating that it is part of a recipe.

Google’s Structured Data General Guidelines will help you understand how to add structured data to your site, while also providing pointers on how to comply with its guidelines.

12. Use Site Maps To Navigate Your Website

Include images in site map for SEO

Google defines website mapping as “listing the web pages of your website to inform Google and other search engines about the arrangement of your site content.” To put this simply, it’s a file that acts as a site map.

An essential aspect of SEO is using site maps, which inform search engines about all the pages on your website. As a result, it is necessary to include all images, such as infographics, memes, photos, and thumbnails of videos, on your site map to make sure search engine crawlers see them.

Include the title, description, URL, caption, and licensing information for these picture map entries. For videos, the title, description, thumbnail URL, and URL to the raw video file must be included.

Yoast SEO, a WordPress plugin, will automatically integrate your visual material to a site map if WordPress powers your website.

IMAGE-GINE All the Possibilities

Before posting a picture, keep these ideas in mind if you’re having trouble getting your material seen. Search engines and human visitors will appreciate your content more if it uses these picture optimization tactics to enhance its likability.

Have questions about optimizing images or want to navigate the ever-changing SEO landscape successfully? Get in touch with First Page and speak to one of our digital specialists.

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