5 Tips for Successful Content Marketing in 2015

The secrets to successful content marketing in 2015 are simple really. Know what makes you different, know your customers THEN engage with your customers in an honest, authentic, clever and original way.

Here's 5 tips to make your content marketing efforts work smarter for you in 2015:

1. People are becoming immune to content so make your content stand out

With so much content freely available these days it's hugely important that your own content stands out from the average, the ordinary and the dull.

During 2014 content marketing grew by over 200% and I estimate that it will continue to grow at the same rate during 2015. With this in mind, brands that create engaging and authentic content with their target audience in mind will benefit from the continued growth of content marketing.

Tip: Make your content stand out with better, more targeted and clever content.

2. Know your customers through customer profiling

If you don’t know who you’re talking to, you won’t know what to say. Who are your customers, where do they hang out, what are their needs, desires and fears? What motivates them to buy?

Tip: Get to know your customers BEFORE you try to market to them.

3. Don't ignore the power of social media

Social media is here to stay so get used to it. Not only will social media give you brand exposure, it will also helps a brand to connect and engage with it's target audience and is essential to support search engine optimisation. Twitter has been putting more emphasis on its indexation and SEO efforts and as a result more tweets are being found on page one of Google. Plus producing well written content is essential to encourage social sharing so brands reach a wider audience.

Tip: Develop content for social media that's brand supportive, targeted & shareable.

4. Content, social media and seo: a marriage made in heaven

Brands must realise that content marketing, social media AND seo are all needed if they want to succeed online. It's no longer one or the other. Great content (written, video, infographics, images) will be 'liked' and 'shared' more on social media and more social media engagement will indicate to Google that the content is deemed to be valuable. Therefore Google will rank valuable content higher in the search results to benefit it's users.

Tip: Integrate SEO, social media and content marketing into your online strategy.

5. Content marketing is more than just writing a few blog articles

Add variety to your content marketing strategy. Written content is great but tweets with images get 150% more re-tweets than those without, by 2017 video will make up almost 70% of consumer internet traffic due to the increase in mobile and tablet use, and around 65% of us respond better to infographics than textual content.

Tip: Mix content types for successful content marketing.

Thanks for reading.

Lisa

7 online marketing trends you can't ignore in 2015

As you plan for your 2015 online marketing strategy, here are 7 trends that we expect to see and 7 actionable tips to benefit your strategy.

1) Mobile will continue to grow

During 2014 the amount of time we spend on our mobile has overtaken PCs. In a survey of US adults it was found that on average we spend 2 hours and 51 minutes on our phones vs 2 hours and 12 minutes on computers. Many companies have now moved to responsive websites which resize according to the screen the visitor is using but as we go forward into 2015 further optimisations for mobile will be necessary to maintain a share of mobile traffic.

One huge factor is load time. The average load time for a top 10 Google ranking website is 0.99 seconds. Search Engine Land recently reported that Google is experimenting with ways to favour in search results websites that are mobile friendly. Already Google takes into account user behaviour, penalising websites which visitors don’t stay on for long or look at many pages on – two behaviours which are directly affected by load time. Not only are there ranking benefits from a fast loading website, Amazon reported that for every 100 millisecond improvement in website load time, they see a 1% increase in revenue.

Tip 1: Make sure your website is mobile friendly, that it loads in under a second and that your content is easy to read and looks good on all devices.

2) Local SEO will become increasingly important

 

Research has shown that 50% of customers who performed a local search on their mobile visited a bick-and-mortar store within 24 hours of their search and 18% of these queries led to a sale. The fact remains that many people still prefer physical shopping to online shopping; there’s something about holding a product in your hands. A report by Accenture revealed that 82% of customers say they prefer shopping on the high street than online. Google understands the importance of providing the best local results to users and they’re fine tuning their algorithm to this end.

Tip 2: Local businesses with physical shops must make use of Google+ and local search so that they’re listed in search results for mobile users. (Oh and make sure you apply tip 1: to having a mobile friendly website!)

3) Specific targeting will be needed for success

 

The days of scatter gun marketing approaches are numbered. Best marketing results will be seen when businesses break down their customer base into segments and market specifically to those segments with the correct voice and tactics to reach that group. It also means more repurposing of content to promote it in a relevant way to each segment. A targeted approach is essential to make sure ROI of time spent creating and money spent advertising content is maximised.

Tip 3: Speak to your customers; find out their wants, needs, lifestyles and habits then tailor your approach to each group. Make sure that whatever you say fits in with the audience you’re saying it to.

4) Content will be expected to entertain

 

As more and more companies have embraced content marketing our lives have become even more flooded with content. To stand out from the noise content will need to become more than informative, it’ll need to be entertaining. Investment in video is becoming a must for brands that want to stay relevant and cutting edge.

Content is and will remain the driving force behind inbound marketing – especially since over 50% of 19 to 34 year olds will look at 4 or more sources before making a purchase. Now that the effectiveness of content marketing has been demonstrated, distribution will become just as important.

In 2015 we will see more of a focus on re-purposing and distributing to get maximum value from the content we create. Great content marketers will create different thumbnails according to platform, format restrictions and audience preferences so that campaigns consistently look good across all platforms. We’ll also see the same content being promoted in different ways, for example a topic might start out as an article, then an infographic, and then thumbnails and also as a Slideshare. This really follows on from Tip 3: knowing your audience and being specific with how you target different groups.

Tip 4: When you’ve created a great piece of content promote it across several platforms multiple times. Pull out nuggets of information and create interesting, engaging social posts about your content. Use images and video to create something that will stand out.

5) We’ll see more paid advertising

 

We’ve seen the rise and growth of social media success with many businesses adopting social for customer service and to reach out to new prospects. Now however there is increasing need to advertise on social platforms. With Facebook’s algorithm update it’s become increasingly hard to get content in front of consumers without advertising. This algorithm change lead to a 44% decline in brand content in users’ new feeds. LinkedIn, Twitter and Pinterest have followed Facebook and have all launched sponsored ads to put content in front of a specified group.

Tip 5: Budget for sponsored ads on social platforms, even £5 a day can dramatically increase your reach on Facebook. Once you invest, use analytics to measure your success and fine tune your strategy.

6) And more user reviews

 

Consumer reviews are certainly not a new trend but what we will see increasingly is companies asking customers to share their experiences become brand advocates. User generated content is invaluable. In the words of Jeff Bullas: “Reviews are a source of truth that will live on the web indefinitely”. It’s one thing saying you provide a great product or service, how much more valuable is it if your customers sing your praises for you? According to Neil Patel, customers are ready and willing to talk about great buying experiences: “50% will write about positive experiences, and 39% will write about negative”. Customers want you to wow them, and when you do they want to tell people about it.

There are various ways that you can collect reviews; on Google+, Trustpilot or with onsite review functionality. Collect reviews on Google+ one of the results when customers type your brand into Google will be your Google+ page with your shinning reviews. Companies that grasp this in 2015 will benefit from higher levels of trust and, consequently, better conversion rates.

Tip 6: Start asking customers to leave reviews on your Google+ page. We’ve written a couple of articles on the topic: 11 ways to encourage customer reviews and User Reviews: why they’re essential for e-commerce SEO.

7) We’ll expect increased personalisation

Another trend is increasing personalisation. More than ever customers are expecting companies to reach out to them personally. This is especially true of millennials who have grown up in the digital age and now have money to spend. They expect companies to court them for their business, they want to feel valued and personalisation is one way to do this.

Tip 7: Start sending out personalised follow up emails after cart abandonment. It shows that you do really value their purchase.

Thank you for reading.

5 Tips for starting out on Social Media

1) Create personality

Your social media activity needs to reflect your business and have a personality, so take time to think about your voice and which voice will connect best with customers.

2) Plan

Decide who your target audience is, which channels you want to use to best reach your audience, what your goals are and when and how often you will post.

3) Schedule

Once you’ve created your plan you can schedule a baseline of social updates, we like using Hootsuite. You can add retweets, responses and news updates to this baseline.

4) Be consistent

Consistent quality and volume is how you build an audience, scheduling your social media helps with this.

5) Use images and video

Visual content is so easy to absorb and stands out amongst text posts on the likes of Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

We'll be publishing a blog post full of useful tips every Monday morning so why not follow us on Twitter so that you don't miss one!

11 of the best internet marketing infographics

Infographics have really surged in popularity over the last couple of years. And it’s no wonder really as visuals make a topic easy to understand and instantly digestible.

We've picked out 11 of our favourite infographics. Together they create a beginners guide to internet marketing, search engine optimisation, content marketing and social media marketing.

If you’re new to internet marketing, these infographics are a great place to start. And if you know your way around the world of internet marketing pretty well, we hope this blog post forms a useful bank of statistics for you.

1) The Periodic Table of SEO Success Factors (published 2013)

This infographic clearly explains the most important factors involved in SEO. It splits these factors into two groups, On-The-Page and Off-The-Page Factors with an explanation for each. Rating and colour coding the different factors between +3 for really effective SEO tactics and -3 for harmful practise, makes it obvious which to use and which to steer clear of.

Take away: Make sure you (or your SEO agency) only employ SEO tactics that have a positive rating in this table.

2) The Blogconomy (published August 2013)

The infographic starts with the heading “why blogging is good for your business”. Then it goes on to list over 50 different stats/pieces of information on blogging. Thanks to the hard work done by ignitespot collecting all of these valuable figures into one resource, it’s easy to see why and how blogging will grow your business.

Click for full infographic.

Take away: If you don’t blog, start now. It generates leads and will boost your website’s visibility in Google search results.

3) The Ultimate Guide to Social Media Image Dimensions (published February 2013)

We really like this infographic because it’s so useful! Anyone setting up or refreshing their company’s social media profiles will need to navigate the tricky world of multiple profile image and channel art dimensions. Thankfully, this lovely infographic collects all of this information in one place.

Click for full infographic.

Take away: Don’t settle for stretched images on your social platforms. Get them right.

4) The Best Times to Tweet, Pin, Tumble and Post (published May 2014)

One of the most common questions our clients ask on the topic of social media, is when should I Tweet, Facebook or post to Google+, this infographic puts this information at the tip of your fingers for the 6 most used social platforms.

Click for full infographic.

Take away: Be strategic about when you post on social media to see more engagement.

5) 22 ways to Create Compelling Content (published February 2012)

We talk a lot about content here at angelfysh. And rightly so. It’s one of THE most important factors when it comes to getting your website to the top of Google search results. unfortunately, deciding what to write about isn't always easy. This infographic has 22 ways for you to get your creative juices flowing.

Click for full infographic.

Take away: Get blogging!

6) How to Increase LinkedIn Engagement by 386% (published December 2013)

This infographic has some great tips on how to take your LinkedIn use from personal networking to generating leads and revenue for your business. It includes useful information such as when to post, and what to talk about.

Click to see full infographic.

Take away: Include links or images in your LinkedIn updates.

7) Why Video Drives Sales (published October 2013)

Content marketing isn’t just about written content, it includes video too. This infographic shows why every company must include videos as part of their marketing strategy – e.g. 75% of executives watch work-related videos on business websites at least once a week. And! Video traffic will account for a huge 69% of all consumer internet traffic by 2017.

Click to see full infographic.

Take away: Don’t just leave video to the ‘big players’ in your industry. Take the lead and add videos into your internet marketing strategy.

8) Mobile Marketing (published May 2012)

Did you know that 46% of users who view a product on their phone are actually standing in the store? And by 2015 43% of mobile users will make purchase on their phones. This infographic contains loads of great statistics on mobile usage which you can use to inform your mobile marketing strategy.

Click to see full infographic.

Take away: Make sure your website is responsive. A responsive website will resize to fit the screen (laptop, tablet, mobile etc.) being used to view the website.

9) The New Multi-Screen World (published August 2012)

Google has created this neat little infographic which contains some really interesting information on cross-platform consumer behaviour. By cross platform we mean shoppers who use more than one device in their buying journey. For example, 67% of people use two devices when shopping such as a phone and a computer.

Take away: Make sure your website is responsive, easy to navigate and easy to checkout on multiple devices.

10) Why Visual content Marketing Delivers Results (published September 2014)

This is really an infographic on why infographics work! If you’re still to be convinced of their merit here are some statistics that will leave you without any doubt of their effectiveness to engage.

Click for full infographic.

Take away: What subject could you create an infographic on to engage new leads or customers?

11) A Visual History of Google Algorithm Changes (published February 2014)

This infographic will give you a snapshot overview of the background of SEO today. It eloquently summarises the changes Google has been making to the way it finds and ranks websites over the last decade.

Click for full infographic.

Take away: Google will favour websites with quality content and quality links.


We hope you've found this interesting! If you've got a favourite infographic, please let us know in the comments below. Please also share this post with your own followers. Thank you.

10 Tips on how to promote your blog posts after you hit publish (+ 6 links to another 159 tips!)

How to promote your blog content and news articles

Okay you've spent hours researching, crafting and polishing the perfect blog post and you've hit the publish button.

So now all you have to do is sit and wait for all the lovely traffic to pour in right?

Wrong.

Now you need to start actively promoting it and engage with new readers.

Here's 10 tips to help you promote your blog post

1. Make sure you choose a compelling title for your blog post. Something people will want to click on.

2. Promote via social networks. Tweet to Twitter. Post to Facebook, Google+ and LinkedIn. Images and infographics to Instagram and Pinterest. Videos to YouTube etc.

3. Take your blog post, turn it into a pdf and upload to SlideShare and other document sharing websites. This works well for 'how-to', 'lists' and 'top 10' type blog posts.

4. Feature and link to influential websites, blogs and brands in your market from within your blog post. And let those people know on social media that you've featured them in your blog post. They'll most likely reward you by sharing and re-tweeting (IF your content is good enough though).

5. If your blog post contains statements, facts and figures, make sure you back them up with references and quotes from experts in this niche. Include a 'click to tweet' option for quotes. Then again let those people know via Twitter etc that you've featured them.

6. Get to know who the authorities in your market are. Network with them. Share their content. This again will get you noticed and could generate some 'shares' from them.

7. Make sure you encourage your readers to share your blog post. Place social share buttons at the bottom of your blog post (you could include share buttons at the top too). And ask people to share.

8. If you have a database of email subscribers make sure you do a mail shot each time you publish a new blog post.

9. Find forums in your niche and become part of the community. Join in with conversations, offer help and advice but don't over-promote your blog posts just yet. And take the time to read the forum rules first.

10. Make sure you re-share your blog post again across various social networks. Use the image below as a guide on how often to share across Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and Tumblr.

The original source of this image can be seen across at Search Engine Journal in this post Traffic generation for blogs on a budget

And the additional 159 tips I promised are...

31 ways to promote your blog courtesy of Stuart at NicheHacks (good stuff in here).

Rebekah Radice's post 25 Smart ways to promote your latest blog post will also give you some good ideas.

14 ways to promote your blog posts after you publish was written earlier this year by Jessie Joathome across at BlogHer and is worth reading.

Samuel Pustea wrote this useful article 50 ways to promote and market your blog post.

There's a nice infographic at Marketing Land showing 30 ways to promote your blog posts.

And another infographic entitled 9 powerful blog promotion tactics can be seen across at Social Marketing Writing.

Thank you for reading. If you've enjoyed this post please do share it.

Business owner or marketing manager? 5 tips to save money when hiring an SEO agency

Hiring an experienced professional SEO agency will set you back thousands of pounds every single year. But it's a necessity if you a) have limited or no knowledge of search engine optimisation yourself and b) you want to rank highly in search engines like Google.

So what can you do to save money if you have a set online marketing budget and time on your hands?

We've listed 5 things that you can do yourself that will not only save you money but also support the work that a professional SEO agency will do for you.

1. Blog regularly

Creating regular (at least weekly) high quality blog or news content yourself (or within your organisation) is an absolute must. If you don't write your own content your SEO agency will do it for you (and charge you for it). Creating an 'editorial calendar' will help you to organise your time and identify any seasonal trends that you should be preparing for.

Earlier this year we advised a household brand name on how to encourage and empower their 3,000+ employee's to create content for the brand. You can do it too.

Here's 18 stats to help you write the perfect blog post but remember that a great blog/news article should sell without selling.

Coca-Cola are a great example of a brand that blogs well with a nice balance of different article types. Here's their blog.

Mint.com blog also do this well with a mixture of articles and infographics.

And the official Sharpie Markers blog is fun and innovative.

2. Automate your social network posting

Your social media platforms (Twitter, Google+, Facebook etc) should all be linked & setup from your blog to post automatically every-time a new blog article/news story is published. This will save you time manually publishing to each network.

3. Manage your own social media marketing

One of the factors Google looks for when determining how well a website should rank is 'social signals' (re-tweets, Facebook likes/shares, Google+'s etc). So make sure you provide your followers with information that adds value as this will encourage them to like and share your posts.

And remember to be well mannered... thank people who have interacted with you.

4. Encourage user reviews

Encourage your customers to leave a review of your company and/or products. You can encourage company reviews to be left on your Google+ page as well as on external websites such TrustPilot and TripAdvisor etc (depending on your market).

Product reviews should be encouraged within your e-commerce website as well as externally on websites such as reevoo and CNET. Use positive feedback as testimonials on your website homepage as this will help to lower the bounce rate (which is another thing Google looks at).

Here's a recent blog post we did on 11 ways to encourage customers to leave a review.

Amazon do a great job of this.

5. Write really good product descriptions

One of the most difficult things e-commerce website owners face is making sure that their product descriptions are well written, informative and unique. This is especially true if the very same product with the manufacturers description is being sold online elsewhere (DVD's for example). Google doesn't like duplicate content so take the time to make your product descriptions different. Encouraging user generated reviews of your products (as mentioned in point 4) can help with this.

Not sure what makes a good product page? Here's some great examples for you:

Naked Wines - Great way to display content saving space and the use of user generated content to make the page unique.

Firebox Chilli Chocolate - Quirky and well written content with a lovely tone.

Mr & Mrs Smith Hotels -  Very informative page with information about the hotel, facilities and the surroundings.

If you've enjoyed reading this post why not share it?

16 stats that show the value of SEO, Content Marketing and Social Media

Anyone else love a good juicy statistic? We certainly do!

In this blog post we've rounded up 16 stats for you that demonstrate the value of SEO, content marketing and social media - three things which go hand-in-hand with internet marketing and e-commerce success.

SEO statistics

Outbound leads cost 61% more than inbound leads. An example of an outbound lead could be direct mail or print ads, sources of inbound leads include SEO and content marketing. HubSpot.

SEO leads have a 14.6% close rate, while outbound leads have a 1.7% close rate. Search Engine Journal.

44% of online shoppers start their buying journey with a search engine. IPSOS.

75% of users never scroll past the first page of search results. Hubspot.

70-80% of users searching on Google and Bing ignore paid ads. Search Engine Journal.

Search is the largest traffic driver providing 41% of visitors compared to 11% coming from Social Media. Search Engine Land.

Content Marketing statistics

Companies that blog have on average 4 times more indexed pages, pages that Google has deemed valuable enough to store in its index. Social Media Today.

Companies with blogs on their websites have on average 97% more back links. Social Media Today.

90% of consumers find customer content useful and 81%  trust advice from blogs. Social Media Today.

Social Media statistics

There are 3.2 billion interactions on Facebook and over half a billion tweets published every single day. KissMetrics.

77% of B2C companies and 43% of B2B companies have acquired customers on Facebook. HubSpot.

34% of marketers have generated leads using Twitter. Digital Buzz Blog.

Marketers reported that demand for social media marketing increased by over 60% in 2013. Moz.

71% of social media users are more likely to purchase from brands they follow online. Balihoo.

Interesting content is one of the top three reasons customers follow brands on social media. Social Media Today.

50% of Companies struggling with SEO aren’t integrating social media. Search Engine Land.

...

We hope you've found this collection of statistics both interesting and helpful to your online marketing efforts! Let us know if you've got any SEO stats you'd like to share by commenting below.

18 stats to help you write the perfect blog post

... sounds like a big claim... but these 18 stats will shed light on how to get your blog posts more social shares and therefore back links (which are so important to help you rank well in Google). In this post we'll look at five easily measurable factors and show how they can be used to make your blogging a success.

Article length

These few stats will help you answer questions like: how long is the optimum length of a blog post? And does the length of your content matter?

1. Articles that are over 1,500 words long receive on average 68.1% more tweets and 22.6% more Facebook likes... read more.

2. Longer content can convert up to 45% better... read more.

3. The average content length for a Google top ten ranking is 2,000 words or more... read more.

 

(With all of this said, we’re not giving you an excuse to ramble! If your post is naturally long then great but don't waffle just to make your content longer.)

Blog headlines

The headline is your mini sales pitch to get people to click through to your blog, it's your moment to shine. So what works best?

4. 77% of press releases indexed in Google news had headlines that were too long, and so appeared truncated... read more. So make sure when you're writing to keep your headlines under 65 characters long.

5. More than 1 in 4 of all headlines won’t fit into a tweet! ... read more. This is another reason to follow the 65 character golden rule.

6. The blog title length sweet spot is between 14 and 16 words long with up to 5 times more back links than a title with 24 words... read more.

Blog articles with lists

List blog posts are everywhere. Have they been overdone? Maybe… but the stats show that there are a few compelling reasons for their popularity:

7. A study by SEOMoz showed that blog articles using lists receive twice as many back links... read more.

8. 22 out of 25 of Econsultancy’s top 25 blog posts of 2013 were lists blog posts... read more.

Blog articles with images

 

The average number of  images per blog post is 3.2 per post but are there any benefits to be gained by adding images?

9. 40% of us are visual learners, we’ll respond better to visuals than plain text... read more.

10. Articles with images get 94% more views... read more.

11. Photos are linked to twice as much as text updates... read more.

12. Infographics can help businesses grow traffic by 12% more than those who don’t use them... read more.

Blog articles with videos

We would all (well most of us) probably guess that well produced videos would have a positive affect on our website... but producing video content does take a lot of effort, so is it worth it?

13. Pages with videos are 50 times more likely to appear in Google search results... read more.

14. Visitors spend twice as long on pages with video content... read more.

15. The percentage of people who will click on a video in Google search results is 41% higher than for normal search results... read more.

16. 700+ videos are shared on Twitter every minute... read more.

17. 76% of YouTube users tell someone about a video they have seen... read more.

18. 75% of executives says that they watch more than one work related video a week... read more.

To round things off, SEOMoz gave us this stat: blog posts with videos, images and lists attract up to 6 times more back links than a plain post. We're talking to ourselves just as much as anyone else with this post... we'll be adding more videos in future!


We hope this blog post has given you a few easily actionable tips to get your blog articles more visibility, more back links and more social shares.

11 ways to encourage customer reviews

We’ve collated some of the very best tips from around the web on how to encourage your customers to leave reviews. Whether it be service or product reviews, asking users to leave a review on your website is one of the best forms of marketing that will help not only your SEO efforts but should improve your conversion rate too.

Okay let’s get started.

1. Provide a great service and/or great products. 

Psst… you really should be doing this anyway… but if your products or service beats your competitors then your customers are more likely to leave a review.

2. Ask for a review by email. 

Include a link to the reviews page either within the automated email confirmation following a purchase or make it part of your follow up email.

3. Embed review collection in confirmation email. 

This way your customers don’t have to click away from their email at all. No obstacles are put in their way.

4. Provide comment cards. 

If your business is done in person then providing comment cards that your customers can easily fill in is ideal. Or you can pop them in the post with a hard copy receipt. (Don’t forget to provide a pre-paid envelope otherwise you don’t stand any chance of getting them returned).

5. Add a request to your ‘thank you’ page. 

This is usually found after someone has made a purchase and completed checkout on an ecommerce store.

6. Make it easy. 

As with any action you ask your customers to make you must remove any barriers. Don’t ask for them to fill in a great long form. Using the five star rating system (similar to what Amazon uses) is easy and should encourage customers to also leave a written review (which is by far the best type of review from an SEO and conversion perspective).

7. Publish good and bad reviews. 

If all you have are great reviews doesn’t that look a little suspicious? Now I’m not saying go ahead and create some negative reviews if you really don’t have any but do make sure you publish your not-so-good feedback too. This also lets your customers know that you’re willing to publish any kind of review and will encourage them to take the time to write a review.

8. Turn every bit of feedback you receive into a review. 

Whether it be on the phone, via email or social media (see next tip) any type of feedback you get should be added to your website.

9. Use social media. 

Feedback via Twitter, positive or negative, can be turned into a review, so don’t forget to ask for it. Use your Google+ local page to obtain reviews. Facebook has a ‘reviews’ tab that allows anyone visiting your company page to read or add a review. After all what’s the point of having fans and followers if you don’t do something with them? Turn them into brand ambassadors.

10. Publish reviews where people can see them. 

Why would a customer leave a review if they can’t see reviews others have made? Or they didn’t know that they could leave a review?

11. Pick up the phone.

Give your top clients / customers a call and ask them if they'd be willing to give you a review. They don't have to put anything in writing but need to be willing for you to use their names. Let them know that you value their feedback and by giving your products or services a review will help others to make a better buying decision.

How to integrate social media into your online strategy to support SEO

Today we’re going to focus on Social Media and how to best integrate it into your online strategy to support your search engine optimisation (SEO).

The Platforms

Many people ask us, “Which Social Media platforms should I be using?” The answer is that it depends on what you do and what you want to achieve. In this section we will briefly discuss the 6 most widely used social platforms.

LinkedIn: A Social Media tool created to facilitate networking and communication between business people. This is the most popular platform used by B2B marketers.

Facebook: A stable, consistent, conversational platform that invites people to chat, share and become involved in your company and its opinions. It’s a ‘calm’ platform, offering more long term conversations. If you are a B2C company, this is a platform you should be utilising, and it is especially important for retail business to have a presence on Facebook. In fact 90% of B2C companies actively use Facebook.

Twitter: An immediately responsive platform used for short, concise, relevant and powerful messages. This is a fabulous platform where you can reach your customer base, constantly grow your audience, chat back and forth and be accessible. It is a great platform to utilise if your aim is to engage new prospects as this platform is responsible for 82% of B2B Social Media leads.

YouTube: The leading online video platform, owned by Google. 65% of B2C Marketers use video to promote their business. The advantage of good video is that it is a very engaging medium, meaning that it is highly shareable.

Google+: Google’s own version of Facebook, with the purpose of connecting people and making online content easily shareable. This platform is used on average by 40% of businesses, making it the least popular of the platforms we are discussing in this blog post, however, if one of your Social Media goals is to support your SEO then you cannot ignore Google+.

Which platforms are used by B2B marketers?

Now that we know what each of these platforms 'does' we are going to look at how other marketers, in B2B use them . This chart shows the percentage of B2B marketers who use the above social platforms.

The proportions of B2B marketers using each social platform, and the proportion of leads generated from that platform.

Note that the sum of the percentages is well over three hundred percent, this indicates that many are using more than one platform to market their business.

Unsurprisingly LinkedIn is the most used Social Media platform used by marketers but Twitter seems to be the most effective platform for B2B lead generation.

Which platforms are used by B2C marketers?

Now it’s time to turn our attention to B2C Social Media use. 84% of B2C marketers use Social Media as a marketing strategy to engage new customers, increase website traffic raise brand awareness or increase sales.

The proportions of B2C Marketers using each social platform, and the proportion of leads generated from that platform.

Facebook is unarguably the most widely used platform when it comes to B2C companies and it also seems to generate the largest proportion of leads.

How should you use Social Media

1. To promote your content - If you work hard to create fantastic, high quality content such as blog posts, guest articles and videos then you need to get that content in front the largest possible relevant audience. Social Media provides you with the ability to do this.

2. To support your SEO - An active social presence is vital to your search engine rankings. In particular, having (and updating!) a Google+ profile and Google+ business page will aid your SEO because Google favours its own platform.

3. To establish yourself as an expert in your field - Build a relevant following and get involved in discussions.

4. To say interesting things - Back to content again! Everything you say should be interesting and valuable to your audience, otherwise its just more noise in an already very noisy world!

The case for Social Media

Social Media, when used well can create an on-brand ‘buzz’ that will further build your brand and work towards achieving your distinct business objectives.

Legitimate interactions between businesses and customers are hard to fake using Social Media. For this reason Google is placing more focus on Social Media and social sharing to determine how highly and how quickly a website should rank in Google search results.

Google gives more weight (and therefore higher rankings in search results) to SEO-type activities that are harder to create. For example, 30 seconds spent creating a tweet on Twitter is not great in Google’s eyes. However, a news article on a website that is shared 100 times between visitors, that’s also posted to Twitter and Facebook and which is re-tweeted by your followers is excellent.

These results highlight the growing expectation, in the eyes of customers and Google, of businesses to have an active social presence.

Sources:
Social Media Today

eMarketer 

MarketingLand 

8 tips to help you climb the Google rankings in 2014

2013 has been a significant year with regards to SEO trends, and updates from Google in particular. Encrypted searching is taking off, and this change from keyword data has left some wondering whether the tactics used by Google to defend against spam will make a major difference in getting your website out there and recognisable. While your approach has to change slightly, the need for an online presence is just as strong, with the competition growing all the time.

1. Focus on content

One important method to ensure success in climbing the Google rankings in 2014 is to anticipate what will happen over time so that you can be better prepared. Websites that use tricks to get to the highest rankings or offer nothing of value to visitors have been targeted to protect quality of both links and content. As a result, you should pay attention to the makeup of your incoming links and perform audits periodically to find and try to trim inbound links that are not put together naturally. As usual, high-quality content will remain important.

2. Increase supporting marketing efforts

Content marketing, previously buzzword focused, will move to a mature marketing method in 2014, and Google will be most interested in companies that have good supporting marketing efforts. This will show them that they are the kind of business worth supporting. To have good content, the information must be relevant to your audience, posted regularly, exude a sign that the website is active and still building, and be backed up by a presentation that shows authority and knowledge about the content being presented.

3. Google+ is important

Google's updates are going to rely on social signals more and more, and a Google+ presence will be necessary. A strong SEO ranking is one that establishes Google Authorship of the content, and ties it to a Google+ account. +1's are becoming a big factor in the "social signals" component of Google's algorithm.

4. Social Media interaction will affect search ranking

Social media has become a primary force in digital marketing over the past few years, and now, it is necessary to be on multiple networks. Strong profiles on websites that matter to customers and search engines, good information, and ease of sharing of that content, as well as being active on social networks that are relevant to your area of specialty, are all critical.

5. Increase content for mobile

Companies looking to rise up the rankings should also pay attention to the role that mobile marketing plays. As the use of smartphones and tablets rises, websites that you're trying to rank must be designed for mobile from the get-go. Semantic search will increase in importance, and this is going to be massive as voice search becomes important. This is a critical area to focus on, with regard to how content is structured and what kind of content you publish.

6. Longer (and shorter) content length

Google values expertise, and as a result, the length of content you should be looking for has grown from roughly 500 words to over 1000 words. But on the other hand, keep in mind that mobile devices will cause people to want shorter content when browsing on an iPhone, and thus creating the challenge of mobile-oriented content that will be much shorter.

7. Catch trends on the way up

Strategies for climbing the Google rankings in 2014 may seem difficult, but it is easy to determine the ways in which trends are going. Continuing the tried-and-true methods and paying attention to the new critical areas that are currently changing will allow you to improve search visibility. The rules will be constantly changing, and being on top of that change will be favorable to you.

8. Diversify your marketing

A few more ways to increase your Google ranking include taking advantage of guest blogging, which is one of the most effective ways of building inbound links, traffic, and brand exposure, locate references to your website that are without links, setting up speaking engagements to promote your website, and simply targeting the right keywords.

Need help?

If all of this seems too much like hard work then angelfysh can help your business in all areas of online marketing and search engine optimisation including blogging, content marketing, guest blogging, social media and Google AdWords.

Get in touch with us to find out how we can help you.

20 top brands taking advantage of Social Media

In today’s highly competitive online market, most big brands are turning to social media to help boost not just their image, but ultimately their profits. Over the past couple of years, social media has become one of the most important places for consumers making purchasing decisions to turn to. With so many individuals using social media on a daily basis, businesses are learning that by supplementing their search engine optimization (SEO) strategy with this avenue for their marketing approach, they are reaching far more individuals.

SEO vs. Social Media 

With 2014 nearly upon us, businesses need to turn more to social media when marketing their brands. While SEO is still an important part of online marketing, social media is slowly catching it up in its usefulness. The popularity of social media can even be seen with search engines such as Bing, who take an individuals search and not only gives them the best search results but also compares their results with those of their Facebook friends. With Bing becoming nearly as popular as Google, it is obvious that the influence social media has on people’s everyday habits is substantial. It’s simply not possible to think as the two wings of the marketing machine as completely separate and distinct.

Businesses using Social Media


Many businesses have already realized this. In fact, in 2013 alone Facebook saw more businesses turn to the social media giant to advertise their Black Friday sales then any year before. As an example of just how important social media has become, here are ten big brands that have already supplemented their SEO with social media outreach, and have learned that it pays off in big numbers.

 1.   Argos - Social media has played big part in the evolution of the UK’s leading digital retailer (as the company now describes itself). One of the social principles of the brand is to be an active listener, responding quickly to customers queries on Twitter and Facebook. Also feedback received on the Argos Aliens ads via social media platforms led to the launch of the Alien children as collectable toys.

2.   Red Bull - No introduction needed to who or what Red Bull is. The company keeps their Facebook page upbeat, fun and exciting for their 32 million followers. Red Bull posts ‘full of energy’ photos of athletes, dancers and regular people enjoying life on their Facebook page. They also have more than 1 million Twitter followers.

3.   Starbucks has been known for a while as being one the best brands out there when it comes to social media use. They have it all, from Instagram to Twitter and Facebook. By promoting specials and new drinks, Starbucks has reached millions through their social media strategy.

4.   L'Oreal India decided to market their new hair color product known as Casting Creme Gloss, through their Facebook page. They created a Facebook app in which consumers who bought the hair product could enter a code found on the back of the product. From there the consumer could upload a video of themselves and a friend using the product to get a chance to star in an upcoming commercial. By offering this unique campaign, L'Oreal India saw a 45% increase in their sales.

5.   Shoppers Stop ran an exclusive offer on their Facebook page once they hit the 1 million fan mark by offering fans a special coupon deal. Within two days, the online retailer saw over 10,000 Facebook fans make purchases.

6.   Amazon may be one of the largest online retailers around, but they still use social media on a daily basis to promote their sales. In fact, they recently just ran a promotion in which Facebook users could share their wish list on Facebook in order to earn money off their next purchase.

7.   Carrabba’s, the Italian restaurant has seen a substantial growth in their sales since joining Facebook. By keeping their content always up-to-date, they have done an amazing job of keeping hungry eaters engaged with their page.

8.   Threadless was one of the early adapters to use Instagram for their marketing strategies. By sharing photos of new t-shirts on the popular social networking site, they have seen their products quickly become more popular around the world.

9.   H&M being one of the top 25 brands it’s no wonder that H&M are doing something right with regards to their social media. H&M has over 14 million fans on Facebook and updates its Facebook page several times a day. Competitions on Instagram included a chance for customers to win clothes from the H&M Brick Lane Bikes collection by posting photos of their best bike style image using the hashtag #HMBikeStyle. They also take advantage of Twitter and Google+ (with more than 2.5 million fans on G+) You can read about their social media strategy here.

10.   Hestia Tobacco - With tobacco slowly fading in popularity, Hestia Tobacco has used its Facebook profile to try and gain support. Through its social media approach, this small tobacco company earned itself a write-up from a giant business publishing group for its marketing approach.

11.   John Lewis had an excellent start to 2013, announcing a 44% increase in online sales over Christmas 2012. John Lewis doesn’t publish its own social media guidelines online however we know that content is key with a tailored approach for each social media channel. John Lewis keeps Facebook well updated and does a good job of interacting with fans. They use Twitter, Pinterest and Google+.

12.   JCPenney is one company that listened to their social media fans. During Black Friday last year many shoppers of the popular retail store were extremely disappointed and upset with their decision to discontinue the popular Disney Snow Globes. Through social media, consumers engaged with the retailer and were able to bring back the Snow Globes for the 2013 Holiday Season. By doing so, the declining retail giant saw an uptake in their sales this Black Friday.

13.   Seamless - an online service that features over 12,000 restaurant menus and discounts, has become popular through its social media marketing approaching reaching over 72,611 followers on Twitter and over 388,000 followers on Facebook.

The other seven

Click here to read detailed social media case studies of another 7 brands from 2013.

As you can see, social media is a great way to promote products and services online. With more and more people using social media as one of their trusted forms for gathering online information, businesses need to embrace this profitable marketing technique.

As a supplement for SEO, social media may even gain businesses more followers. In the year 2014, it’s no longer going to be just about where businesses’ websites falls in Google’s top 10, but how many Google+, Facebook and Twitter followers a company has.

To find out how angelfysh can help your business with SEO and Social Media get in touch today.

Be prepared to spend more on SEO in 2014 - here's why

Increase your SEO budget in 2014: grow your business online

 

Industry experts are predicting that SEO spending will increase in 2014. Certainly, digital media and digital marketing communications have been gaining more traction than traditional media in recent years. Therefore, not only will SEO spending increase in 2014, but digital marketing budgets are expected to increase overall. I'll show you the figures which support the expected increase in SEO budgeting along with the strategic reasoning behind it which lies in the difference between paid traffic and natural traffic. Finally, I'll give three reasons why you can expect your SEO budget to increase in response to Google algorithm updates.

Market Trends in Digital Marketing Spends

According to market research on marketing spends for 2013, 53% of companies’ budgets have gone to marketing. 75% of the company's marketing budget has gone to digital media instead of traditional marketing and the digital marketing budget is expected to increase by 28% in 2014; while the overall marketing budget is expected to increase by 23% overall in 2014. This research shows that there is a growing trend towards digital marketing, which is quickly gaining preference over traditional marketing tactics. To be specific, Search Engine Optimisation, which intends to capture natural traffic, and e-mail marketing techniques, which intend to retain customers, have received the most budgeting and attention by companies in 2013.

This data demonstrates that companies are valuing retention over acquisition; meaning that they are sensitive to the needs of their technically savvy consumers and are trying to gain customer trust through SEO, online content and e-mail marketing in an effort to create long-term relationships with customers, rather than simply getting a conversion.

The use of SEO techniques and e-mail marketing also affords companies the ability to add variety to their portfolio; not only can companies offer their usual products/services, but they can also use online advertisements and sponsored e-mail advertisements in order to add another source of income. However, these advertisements will only offer a sizable income stream if the company can garner enough viewership from natural search engines, and gain the trust of their viewers through continued effort.

Online content offers a way to connect with people, and build a relationship. You choose the type of relationship you want with your consumers; why not build a positive relationship with mutual benefits?

Paid Search vs. Natural Search: use SEO to seize the market

What is even more interesting is the inequity between spending on paid traffic (Google AdWords) and spending on SEO tactics. Currently, most companies are spending up to 20 times more on PPC and other modes of paid traffic than SEO tactics which will gain natural search traffic. This inequity is interesting because paid search traffic only accounts for 25% of all search traffic. Whereas, natural traffic accounts for 75% of all search traffic. Can you see where this is going?

Companies are currently spending about 85% of their budget on paid traffic, when paid traffic only targets 25% of the entire online search market. How much more effective would your marketing efforts be if you spent 85% of your budget on trying to capture 75% of the entire online search market?

It seems that companies put a lot of attention on paid traffic because it's an easy way to get a quick conversion without much maintenance. However, a bit of effort can go a long way and allow you to increase your market share exponentially if you spend more on SEO marketing then paid traffic. Focusing your budget on SEO marketing techniques will also allow you to enter markets that have little to no competition. Hence, you can take advantage of market gaps and opportunities by targeting markets which are not already saturated with marketers.

Think of SEO as like buying a house and Google AdWords as renting.

By spending more on SEO tactics and less on garnering paid traffic, you can effectively target 100% of the online search market and increase your market share exponentially.

Already budgeting for SEO marketing? 3 reasons it will cost you more than you think in 2014

You may have already researched predictions for trends on SEO in 2014, however keeping up with these trends comes with a price tag. I'll give you three areas which will require a greater SEO budget in 2014 if you want to keep in front of market trends and off of Google's de-indexed list.

1.    High-quality back-links

The new Google algorithm updates are expected to instantly spot unnatural back-links, possibly purchased cheaply, and penalize the website for them. Therefore, natural back-links, which have been earned by guest blogging and as a result of social sharing will help your website to rise to the top of Google. While, cheap back-links will definitely make your site sink to the bottom of Google and could even get your website penalized and de-indexed. Expect to not only budget for the creation of new quality back-links monthly, but also expect to pay for an audit of your website’s back-links which will destroy any links that will affect your ranking negatively.

2.    Extensive, high-quality content

Not only will you be expected to have well-written, quality, informative content, but each blog post/article will be expected to be at least 1,000 words. This means that if you're currently paying for 2-3, 500 word posts, you can expect to double your content creation budget. Google's algorithm is getting better at recognizing when an article is trying to game them. They want you to provide valuable content, not just an article that passes Copyscape and repeats the same word a few times. If you aren't a writer, now is definitely the time to hire one.

3.    Outsourced Social Media management

Social Media has become a necessary tier of SEO. Your Social Media interactions on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Google+ are expected to factor highly in Google’s PR ratings. Social Media is also a great way to siphon natural traffic to your website, where you can capture viewer’s attention and possibly win new business/increase sales. If you aren't already partaking in Social Media or haven't already outsourced your Social Media management, this service is no longer optional; rather Google has made it obligatory if you want to stay ahead of the curve.

Staying competitive in the online market means trying to ensure your business keeps in front of the trend. Being behind trends in SEO, can make the difference between being on first on Google’s page rankings and being de-indexed. The online market moves so quickly that you need a team of people that can help you manage various aspects of your digital marketing communications.

So take advantage and invest in search engine optimisation, social media marketing and content marketing/blogging that will help you grow your business and scale upwards.

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Get in touch with Lisa Forster to find out how angelfysh can help you in 2014.