Choosing the Right Social Platform for Your Business 20 Mar 2024 2:26 AM (last year)
In the ever-evolving landscape of social media marketing, understanding the nuances between platforms is crucial for businesses aiming to maximise their online presence and reach their target audience effectively. While some social platforms excel in facilitating business-to-business (B2B) interactions, others are more tailored for business-to-consumer (B2C). Let’s explore the key considerations and strategies for leveraging social media platforms based on your business type.
Understanding B2B vs. B2C Marketing
Before delving into platform selection, it’s essential to grasp the fundamental differences between B2B and B2C marketing approaches. B2B marketing typically involves selling products or services to other businesses or professionals, focusing on building relationships, providing value, and addressing specific business needs. B2C marketing targets individual consumers, emphasising emotional appeal, brand loyalty, and immediate purchase decisions.
Platforms Suited for B2B Marketing
LinkedIn stands out as the go-to platform for B2B marketing. It offers a professional networking environment conducive to forging industry connections, sharing thought leadership content, and generating leads. With robust targeting options and business-oriented features like LinkedIn Ads and LinkedIn Groups, businesses can effectively reach decision-makers and stakeholders within their niche.
Additionally, Twitter serves as a valuable platform for B2B engagement, providing real-time communication and networking opportunities. By sharing industry news, participating in relevant conversations, and leveraging hashtags, businesses can increase visibility and establish themselves as industry experts.
Platforms Suited for B2C Marketing
Platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest offer unparalleled opportunities for businesses targeting consumers to showcase products or services, engage with audiences, and drive sales. Facebook’s vast user base and sophisticated ad-targeting capabilities make it ideal for reaching diverse consumer demographics and running targeted advertising campaigns.
Instagram, with its visually driven interface and emphasis on storytelling, is particularly effective for brands looking to showcase their products through captivating imagery and videos. By leveraging features like Instagram Stories, Reels, and Shopping tags, businesses can create immersive experiences and drive purchase intent among their followers.
Similarly, Pinterest provides a unique platform for B2C marketing, enabling users to discover and save ideas, products, and inspiration. Businesses can leverage Pinterest’s visual search functionality, curated boards, and promoted pins to reach users seeking inspiration and discovering new products or services.
Tailoring Your Approach
While it’s essential to focus on platforms aligned with your business type, success in social media marketing requires a nuanced approach tailored to your specific goals, target audience, and brand identity. Regularly monitor platform analytics, test different content formats and messaging strategies, and adjust your approach based on audience feedback and engagement metrics.
Ultimately, by understanding each social platform’s unique strengths and demographics and aligning your marketing efforts accordingly, businesses can optimise their online presence, drive meaningful engagement, and achieve their marketing objectives, whether targeting businesses or consumers.
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The Importance of WordPress Maintenance 11 Sep 2023 2:41 AM (2 years ago)
A strong online presence is crucial for individuals, businesses, and organisations in the digital age. One of the most popular platforms for creating and managing websites is WordPress. WordPress offers powerful features, making it a favourite among web developers and site owners. However, building a WordPress website is the first step in your online journey. Regular WordPress maintenance is paramount to ensure your site’s continued health and success.
Why WordPress Maintenance Matters
Security
WordPress is a popular target for hackers due to its widespread use. Failing to keep your WordPress site updated and secure can leave it vulnerable to cyberattacks. Regular maintenance involves updating WordPress core, themes, and plugins, often including security patches. By staying up-to-date, you can significantly reduce the risk of your website being compromised. For more information or if you require help with WordPress security, please contact us.
Performance
Website speed and performance are critical factors for user experience and SEO ranking. Over time, your site can accumulate unnecessary data, outdated plugins, and bloated themes that slow it down. WordPress maintenance tasks such as optimising images, cleaning up databases, and removing unused plugins can help improve load times and keep visitors engaged.
User Experience
A well-maintained WordPress website provides a better user experience. Broken links, outdated content, and non-responsive design can frustrate visitors and lead them to leave your site. Regularly updating and reviewing your website’s content and design ensures that your site remains user-friendly and relevant.
Backup and Disaster Recovery
Accidents and technical issues can happen at any time. Without proper backups and disaster recovery plans, you risk losing valuable data and content. Regular backups and a tested restoration process are vital components of WordPress maintenance. They ensure you can recover your website quickly in case of a data loss or catastrophic event.
Compatibility
As technology evolves, so do browsers, devices, and software. Older themes and plugins may become incompatible with newer versions of WordPress or web browsers, leading to functionality issues. Regular maintenance involves keeping all website components up-to-date to ensure compatibility across different platforms and devices.
Reputation and Trust
A well-maintained website reflects positively on your brand or personal identity. Visitors are more likely to trust and engage with a site that is secure, up-to-date, and consistently delivers a good user experience. Maintaining your WordPress site is an investment in your online reputation and credibility.
Our Summary
Maintaining a WordPress website is not a one-time task but an ongoing commitment in the ever-evolving digital landscape. The importance of WordPress maintenance cannot be overstated, as it directly impacts your website’s security, performance, user experience, and success. By regularly updating, optimising, and safeguarding your WordPress site, you can ensure that it continues to serve its purpose effectively, whether running a business, sharing your passions, or disseminating valuable information. Ultimately, the effort you put into WordPress maintenance will pay off in the form of a secure, high-performing, and trusted online presence.
For more information on our WordPress maintenance service please get in touch.
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Choosing a domain name 23 Jan 2019 1:16 AM (6 years ago)
Choosing a domain name for your company is one of the most important business decisions you will make. Here we highlight the main issues and key steps to consider.
Step 1: Do your research – make it unique!
There are now more than 300 million domain names registered worldwide. This means new businesses will have to be creative when deciding on a domain name to make it catchy and memorable.
Do a Google search for your company name. If you’re going to be competing against well established domains and large websites, you might struggle to rank on the first page. So, try to choose a domain that is unique and easy to rank for.
- Keep it short
- Try to avoid numbers
- Don’t use slang for example ‘u’ instead of ‘you’
- Ensure it’s easy to read/spell
- Make it unique
Step 2: Use your business name – build your brand!
I would always advise choosing a domain name that matches your brand rather than any keywords you are targeting. Use the mindset that your brand name is the most important key word.
- It’s good practice to have a domain name that matches your company name
- Using your company name will help users find your website more easily
- Consistency is key – build your brand
It’s also worth noting, in 2012 Google penalised low-quality keyword-heavy (exact match) domain names to ensure they didn’t rank well in the Google search results. This is another good reason to use your brand name.
Step 3: Which TLD? – think about your market and future proofing!
A TLD (top-level domain) is the part of your web address that comes after your domain name such as .com, .co.uk or .net.
How do you choose? Here are some tips……
The .com extension by far the most popular and globally recognised, so if you sell your products globally this would be the best option.
The extension .co.uk is ideal for UK users and the majority of people searching in the UK will click on the .co.uk sites first.
These two TLDs can also help your business to be found more easily by search engines.
Other TLDs include .info, .org, .net and .biz. If you wish to protect your brand you may consider purchasing all of the domain name variations.
Step 4. Respect the law
Make sure the domain name you select isn’t already trademarked, copyrighted or being used by another company. It just isn’t worth the risk and could prove costly. Also, always ensure the domain name is registered to the correct person and company in case of any ownership disputes.
Next you need to register your domain name…
There are many domain registrars to choose from so you must find an accredited one, or an authorised reseller. The process is straightforward and can be done online.
You will need to pay a registration fee which varies depending on the type of domain name you are buying. For example:
- .co.uk name usually costs £5-10 per year
- .com usually costs between £10 – £20 per year.
Some extensions can be much more expensive. Companies may also offer additional services, such as web hosting, so explore who offers the best deal for your business.
Interestingly, registering a domain name does not mean that you own it but you simply have the right to use it for a certain period (1 year +). You will have to renew your registration periodically before it expires.
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What is a content management system? 1 Jan 2019 8:19 AM (6 years ago)
If you’re in the process of having your brand new website designed and built, it’s likely that you’ve heard your web developer talk about something called a CMS.
If you’re familiar with the term, you’ll already know that a CMS (or Content Management System) is the clever bit of software that actually powers your site. However, if you’re still scratching your head, here’s our guide to the top 5 things you need to know about Content Management Systems, and the benefits they offer to anyone who owns or runs a website.
1. They make running a website easy
A good content management system means that you can quickly and easily update the content on your website. So, whether you need to make changes to text or images, update product listings, or write and edit blog posts, it can be done in real time with virtually no technical knowledge.
2. They can save you money
In the past, updates and changes to websites that weren’t powered by a CMS generally needed to be referred back to a skilled web designer or developer. These days, content management systems often mean you pay once for the initial design and build, then only pay for major changes or additions to your site – as most minor changes to text and images can be done yourself.
3. They can improve your users’ experience
Content management systems can help ensure that things like your navigation, design, colours, and branding remain consistent throughout your site – which is vital in maintaining usability.
4. They can make site handovers much simpler
If you ever need to work with another web developer or designer, a site that has been built with a well-known open source CMS will be much easier to get to grips with than a site that has been built from scratch using bespoke – or even obscure – coding.
5. They offer loads of choice
There are hundreds, if not thousands, of content management systems available on the web. They range from huge enterprise systems designed for massive corporate websites and which cost thousands of pounds, to smaller, open-source (or free) systems with enormous user communities.
Which CMS you choose is up to you and your web developer, and will probably depend on what features your site needs, your level of technical expertise, and your budget. Just ask your developer… they’ll be able to talk you through the options.
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5 ways to make your title tags work harder 19 Oct 2018 5:46 PM (7 years ago)
In terms of search engine optimisation, it’s often suggested that the title tag is the second most powerful piece of information on any web page, with only the content itself being more important.
So if that’s the case, how do you leverage that power? Our 5 essential title tag tips should do the trick…
1. Keep it short.
It’s worth bearing in mind that search engines only display a maximum of 70 or so characters of any page’s title tag in their search results. So, if your title tag is longer than that, remember that it will be cut off at the 70 character point and the rest will be replaced by an ellipsis (…). So, try to stick within that 70 character limit, otherwise you risk compromising your the readability and relevancy of your title tag. In other words, it might not make much sense.
2. Keywords are… well… key.
Don’t forget that the whole reason for improving your title tags is because you want your page to rank for certain keywords. With that in mind, it’s essential to use those particular keywords in the tag – and the closer to the start of the tag, the better. Why? Because it will give you an extra boost in the rankings, and users will be much more likely to click on a link that displays they keyword they’re searching on in the most prominent way.
3) Brand it!
If your brand is well-known in your industry or field, then make the most of it by mentioning it in your title tag. Users who skim down search engine results pages will see more of an incentive to click on your link if there’s a company or brand name they recognise, or one they already have some kind of relationship with.
4) Emotional impact.
Try to think beyond what the content on your page is about, and focus on what makes it relevant to the reader. For example, what can the content on this page do for your reader? Will it help solve a problem? Will it help them make money? Will it change their lives? If you can tug on the emotions of your reader inside your title tag, you’ll give them a huge reason to click through to your page.
5) How does it look?
Finally, remember where the content of your title tags appear. Most people know that you’ll see them in search engine results… but the fact that they are displayed at the top of the browser window is often overlooked. So, make sure that your title tags maintain their readability and relevancy in both places – and a good way to check this is to keep an eye on other sites’ title tags and find out what works visually and what doesn’t… and use that (combined with our other 4 tips) to your advantage.
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The more you update, the higher you go. 19 Oct 2018 5:41 PM (7 years ago)
While most websites have their own unique design and overall purpose, there’s one thing they all try to do in common: make their way up the search engine rankings.
Which is where a website’s content content really comes in.
However, most search engines tend to play their cards fairly close to their chests when it comes to how they define what makes good content, so how can we really know what search engines are looking for?
Well, with millions and millions of websites out there, it’s not difficult to see which ones naturally float to the top of the rankings – and which ones don’t. What’s also easy to spot is what those top sites all have in common when it comes to their content: put simply, it’s unique, it’s relevant, and most importantly, it’s regularly updated.
Keeping your content unique and relevant to your niche or market means that search engines have a straightforward way to rank your site against others. That’s why plagiarised and non-relevant content is often penalised.
But what’s the benefit of regularly updated content? And how can it help your site rank higher?
Once again, the answer is actually fairly simple. To begin with, if search engines discover brand new content on your site often, they’ll visit it more often too. And the more times a search engine crawler visits your site, the more Google juice it will pick up.
Updating your site’s content regularly with new pages also has another huge benefit; by definition alone, it means your site is growing. So it naturally follows that a bigger site with more pages of content will attract more attention from the search engines.
What’s more, having new content often means having topical content. Search engines are clever these days and they know when your site has something to offer searchers who are looking for the latest, up to the minute information. In short, they’ll send more visitors your way if they think your site’s bang up to date.
And finally, new content can also mean covering new ground. By that, we mean growing your content to target keywords and keyphrases which might not be the main focus of your site, but are still relevant to your niche.
So there you have it – regular content updates do so much more than simply make your site look interesting to your visitors… they’re vital in driving natural search traffic to your site, and giving search engines the perfect reason to rate you.
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Whitespace gives the WOW factor 19 Oct 2018 5:41 PM (7 years ago)
In web design, whitespace is anything that isn’t content. Web designers have always loved it, although clients are sometimes less sure. Here are five great reasons why it puts the wow-factor in web design.
1. Legibility
Whitespace around text and images helps visitors read more clearly. That means they’ll keep reading and be able to see where they’re headed. It all makes for a better user experience.
2. Tidiness
Tidiness is good. It makes a great first impression. Whitespace adds elegance and order to a website.
3. Interactivity
White space prevents distractions that can slow down the visitor experience. You can use padding around objects to draw attention to specific site areas.
4. Highlighting
Whitespace can highlight calls to action (CTAs). You might think that the way to draw attention to a page element is to make it bigger. But surrounding it with whitespace can do the job even better.
5. Balance
Not enough whitespace and your pages will look cluttered, confused and disorganised. Visitors would be entitled to draw similar conclusions about your business.
Saying that, go overboard on whitespace and it could suggest a lack of content. As ever, balance is the key in making whitespace a great tool to keep your content organised.
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Free digital marketing tips for new businesses 19 Oct 2018 4:29 PM (7 years ago)
As a new business in today’s smart phone era, its reassuring to know that you no longer need a huge marketing budget to get your products and services out there, and to position yourself alongside your already established competitors. Social media has progressed rapidly and isn’t only used to connect with friends, but to also research products and services, interact with brands they support, and help them in making purchasing decisions.
However, like any aspect of running a small business, digital marketing is all about effort, the more you put in, the better your results will be. Highlighted below are some of the main avenues into successful digital marketing.
Google My Business (GMB) is completely free and a great place to focus your early efforts. It lets you manage how your business appears in both Google Search and Maps, including the name, location, photos, opening hours, as well as letting you interact with your customers through the reviews. You can also learn where and how people are searching for your business. Research show that if people are conducting a local search they are very close to purchasing and half of them act on the same day, so it’s important that all information is accurate, as extensive as possible and with recent positive interactions with customers.
Setting up a Facebook Business Page is also free and is a great way to target your potential customers. Many businesses set one up as an alternative to a website initially and then in time it can be linked through. By setting up promotions and encouraging likes, comments and shares on particular posts, knowledge of your business can potentially reach thousands of people very quickly. You can also pay to reach a more targeted audience and appear in sponsored timelines. These Facebook pages are also indexed on Google and are ideal for business to consumer marketing.
Other social channels
Other social media channels that are popular and utilised by start-up businesses are Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn. On Twitter you can create a business profile, generate a network of followers, post news, events, new products, reviews etc and send and receive messages. As tweets are only short you really need to establish a ‘personality’ for your brand and let this really shine through with compelling content. Twitter also allows you to pay for promotional campaigns to grow your audience and achieve meaningful results. Instagram works in a similar way but primarily through images. So, if you have a really strong visual brand, or you can promote your business through enticing photographs, then Instagram could be a brilliant avenue to use to interact with potential customers. LinkedIn is all about building networks and connections. You can use your detailed company page to promote your business to contacts of contacts so continually generating new leads through word of mouth. Paying for additional services is also an option, allowing you to send direct mail to prospective customers for example.
As well as getting your information out there, digital marketing is about understanding your potential customers. It’s important to learn how to analyse the results offered from Google and social media to learn how people find your page, which posts got shared, liked etc. Bearing this in mind, its best to focus on the two best channels for your business and get proactive with those rather than spread yourself too thinly. You need to set yourself up to be responsive, take time to engage with customers, learn what works and watch what competitors are doing successfully and get posting daily. When writing your content, 80% of it should communicate the value of your business. It needs to be unique, fresh, timely, relevant, solve real problems and reinforce the essence of your business that customers can relate to so they don’t go searching for alternatives. The remaining 20% should focus on specific promotions.
If in time you do chose to develop a business website, it is only worth doing if it can support and interact with the digital marketing channels, so you need to get a professional on the job. They can optimise the site so it appears in search engines, keep it relevant and in line with all the latest advances in social media and technology, and set it up to be responsive for all hand held devices and different browsers.
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Sans-serif fonts VS serif fonts 1 Jan 2017 8:06 AM (8 years ago)
Whenever you commission your print or web designer to create some marketing material or a website for your business, you’ll probably find yourself neck-deep in a discussion about which typeface (or font) to use. And more specifically, whether to use a serif font or a sans-serif font.
We’ll explain the terminology in a minute, but choosing a typeface can often be an easy decision if you already have an established brand with comprehensive guidelines that cover typefaces and fonts.
However, if this is a new project, then it’s useful to know the differences between those two types of font – especially if you want to hold your own if you ever find yourself in that discussion with your designer.
Serif fonts
First up, serif fonts. Fonts in this family are recognisable because the letter forms include what are known as serifs. Serifs are those tiny lines and flourishes you can see tailing from the edges of characters, numbers and symbols, and there are a few theories as to how they originated.
One school of thought is that serifs are a legacy from when letters were created with brushstrokes. When coming to the end of a line, brushes tend to flare out a little which creates the extra shape. An alternative theory is that serifs were more functional and were used to neaten the edges of letters when they were carved into stone. But either way, they’re often considered to be easier to read – at least when printed onto paper – than fonts without serifs.
Sans-serif fonts
And that leads us nicely onto sans-serif fonts. As you’ve probably guessed, sans-serif fonts are fonts without serifs. They often look a lot more modern than serif fonts, but their history also dates back to as early as the 5th Century BC and the term ‘sans-serif’ became widely used in the 1830s.
Which is best for my project?
So, while serif fonts have long been the preferred choice for long printed documents like books and manuscripts, the question that you might be asking your designer these days is what type of font works better on screen?
Good question. The generally accepted rule is that sans-serif fonts work better on screen than serif fonts. Why? because modern screens are made up of millions and millions of square pixels (as opposed to really fine printing with ink), and it’s often difficult to reproduce intricate serifs – especially if the individual characters are quite small. Given the square shape of screen pixels, serifs often disappear altogether or are shown a little too big – both of which can make on screen text look messy.
So, in a nutshell, that’s why your designer might suggest a sans-serif font for on screen designs, and a serif font for printed designs.
Better still, you’ll even be able to understand the conversation when it happens, too!
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