Using GIFs in business

Using GIFs in business

The Power Of Using GIFs In Business

using GIFs for business in a professional manner

GIFs, JIFs, Graphic Interchangeable Formats… whatever you want to call them, they’ve become a permanent addition to the online world – and they’re here to stay.

Not convinced? 5 million GIFs are exchanged on Facebook Messenger daily. More than 2 million GIF interactions take place on Slack a month, and over 1 million GIFs are sent online on popular GIF hosting platform GIPHY each day.

Businesses all over the world are quickly realising that using GIFs as part of their social media or email marketing strategy is, therefore, an excellent way to boost reach and engagement. But if you think throwing in a cute dog GIF here and there is going to get you results, we’re sorry to say that’s not the case. There are right ways and wrong ways to use GIFs in a business – and we’re going to show you what they are.

Aren’t GIFs just those funny moving images?

People often think that GIFs have to be funny in nature in order to be effective. While a large number of them are used for humorous effect, there’s no reason they have to be. GIFs can actually be a great tool to help educate your audience on a topic that may be complicated or to simply advertise a product in a way that’s more engaging than just a static image.

Take the popular news website, Huffington Post. In 2015 they ran a news article about the 5 different ways to wear a silk scarf. On paper, it doesn’t actually sound like the most thrilling read. However, instead of walls of text with instructions, the article used original GIFs with fashion editors to visually explain how to wear the scarf.

silkscarf4

Funny done right

Depending on the story, comedic GIFs may not be the best fit for someone like the Huffington Post, but for a business such as pizza maker DiGiorno, injecting a bit of fun and humour through GIFs has seen them earn an impressive 127,000 followers – and an easy 100 likes and retweets per post. How you ask? Here’s an example:

DiGiorno

@DiGiorno

When you take that first bite of DiGiorno Pizza…

Embedded video

91 people are talking about this

 

While the types of GIFs used will vary business to business, all effective GIFs will have one thing in common – they will make the customer want to act. In the above examples, they make the customer want to try out the different ways to wear a scarf or to simply try a tasty slice of pizza. Don’t just use a GIF because it’s “cool” or “funny” – think about what it will make the customer feel and do.

Where do I find these GIFs?

A good place to start is to visit GIPHY’s trending page. Here you’ll be able to see the most popular GIFs of the day, and get an idea of what everyone’s sharing on the web. Tenor is also a good place to see what’s trending, and has the added bonus of telling you which topics have increased in popularity with a handy percentage increase. GIFs of snow increased by 21% on the day we wrote this blog. We wonder why?

Using a GIF at the height of its popularity is a great way to raise your chances of people engaging with your post or email, but again make sure it’s the right fit for your business and sends the right message to the customer. You’ll have to be quick though –  in the age of the internet things can go from hot to not in less than a few hours, and you don’t want to be posting things that people are no longer talking about.

Make it your own

A good way to avoid this issue entirely though is to make your own! Anyone can make their own GIF these days with minimal technical experience. All you need is a bit of creativity and the right tools. The GIPHY Cam app for smartphones is a great choice for making and editing GIFs on the go, or you can simply use the online GIF maker on their website.

We have a workshop on Creative Content making that covers this very topic too, giving great advice on GIF making that’s relevant to your businesses content themes.

What makes a GIF popular?

But what makes a GIF popular? Unfortunately, there’s no easy answer, but looking at the top 10 most sent GIFs on GIPHY in 2018 may help give us some insight.

So, the most popular GIF of 2018 is… this.

Image result for okurrr

For those unaware, the woman in this GIF is rapper and singer Cardi B. Her Twitter page boasts an impressive 4.21M followers. She’s a popular woman, which may go some way to explaining the GIFs popularity.

The GIF is also from the Tonight Show, a popular American TV show hosted by Jimmy Fallon. According to TV By The Numbers, it rakes in 2-3 million viewers an episode, particularly in the 18-49 age category – an age group far more likely to use GIFs then than anyone over the age of 50.

So, you’ve got a GIF with two massively popular things, that are aimed at the age group most likely to use GIFs. That goes some way to explain the GIFs popularity. But does a GIF simply just need to use someone famous to succeed? Perhaps, but there’s an additional factor too.

Using Google Keyword Planner, we can see how often the phrase ‘Okurrrr’ was searched for throughout the year. The phrase easily gets 75k in search volume a month, with May 2018 seeing the highest with 127k. Combine this with stats from Google Trends, we can see a similar trend, with May 2018 being the peak popularity for the term.

 

So perhaps the equation to be the most popular GIF of the year is:

Popularity² + Popular phrase/trend that 18-49 years old enjoy = GIF of 2018.

I guess we’ll have to see if our equation still holds in 2019. Whatever GIFs you end up using for your business though, remember these important words from GIPHY’s CEO, Alex Chung, if you’re still not sold on them:

 

A picture may be worth a thousand words, but as the average GIF contains sixty frames, then they’re capable of conveying 60,000 words – the same as the average novel.”

Interested in learning more about how to make your business stand out thanks to the wonders of digital marketing? Why not check out the courses we have on offer around creating your own engaging content, or drop us a call.

Daniel Otway

Daniel Otway

Digital Creative

Follow us on social media for blog updates and more kick-ass learning content to grow your digital skills!
Using Social Media for Customer Service

Using Social Media for Customer Service

Using Social Media for Customer Service in light of many big brands leaving social media, we look into why they should maybe stay   There is no denying that social media has changed the way we interact with businesses online a great deal. So why are so many...

Transforming Data Into Things You Can Do!

Transforming Data Into Things You Can Do!

Transforming Data Into Things You Can Do!

what’s the point of measuring it, if you’re not going to make the most of it?

 

Numbers everywhere! Great, you’ve collected all the data, but now what?

These days, businesses are able to know what customers are thinking and how they’re interacting with websites without having to manually collect data – all thanks to tech. But with the sheer amount of data that technology collects and analyses, how can you turn this raw data into actionable insights, and help to improve your business strategy?

What is an insight?

An insight, in digital marketing, is a way to gain an accurate and in-depth understanding of how your site and services are used by your customers. Insights are developed from data and then used to make actionable decisions to improve the performance of your site.

With all the tools we have available, from social media to Google Analytics, there’s little data that can’t be tracked and measured. Data collection and analysis is common practice for many modern businesses and, ideally, data should be utilised and factored into how a brand approaches its marketing. The better the understanding of how customers see and experience your service, the more efficient your marketing efforts can be.

Organise your data

Of course, to gain this understanding, a targeted strategy is required to get the most out of your data. Provided that you have set goals for the performance of your site, you can go straight to the categorising of your data. Begin by breaking down the digital data you’ve collected into whether it’s relevant to your business goals.

There are two main types of data: qualitative and quantitative data. Depending on your goals, one may be more important than the other.

Quantitative Data

Quantitative data is anything that can be measured numerically. This type of data is mostly pulled from analytics tools, like Google Analytics, as well as the analytics of individual social media platforms. This is a great way to determine the demographics and search habits of your site users and the digital journey that these users have taken across your site.

Qualitative Data

Qualitative data is anything that can be defined as descriptive information. These provide you with insight into the types of experiences that your customers have with your services, and their general thoughts and opinions of your business. This type of data can be found in the form of on-site reviews, and reviews on external sources and platforms such as Trip Advisor, social media and Google reviews.

Both of these types of data allow you to understand what’s working and what isn’t when it comes to your business. Once you’ve collected your relevant data, identify whether or not this data reflects the achieving of your specified site goals.

Interpret your data

For example, imagine one of your business goals is to increase the number of positive reviews on your site. To achieve this you previously made pinned posts on Twitter and Facebook, asking users to leave a comment about their most recent experience with you. However, upon checking your data to see if there have been review-based comments on your social channels, you see that there has been little to no change. What you should interpret from this data is that this is perhaps not the most effective way to improve positive reviews of your business.

Alternatively, one of your business goals could be to increase transactions, so, to do so, you implement a discount which you highlight on the site through the form of a promotional banner, which, when clicked, leads to a unique transaction page. You also share a link to this page on your social platforms. As a result, you can see through your data that users have responded well to this discount code, with many landing on the unique transaction page through clicking the banner which has impacted the increase in transactions on your site. What you should interpret from this is that your introduction of a discount has helped you to achieve one of your goals, so this is probably something you should try and replicate.

Make Recommended Next Actions

It’s all well and good that you’ve identified that your previous actions either have or haven’t helped you achieve the goals you’re aiming for, but now what? Well, now is when you make decisions to help you achieve your goals based on the information in the data you’ve collected.

So, the social posts asking users to comment or review their most recent experience didn’t work, and you’ve been able to discover this through your data collection and analysis. You should then make recommended actions based on this, to turn this around. Perhaps your recommended next action is to consider email marketing to your existing customers (while staying GDPR compliant) and offering these customers a voucher in return for a review, to increase the amount of positive feedback for your business.

Or, you can tell that, based on the data, you successfully managed to increase your site’s transactions through a discount banner. You may now consider running a campaign with a couple of PPC ads that highlight this discount offer, to encourage more users to click-through to the unique landing page, and potentially increase the number of transactions on your site.

Start Again

We know what you’re thinking; “What?! I’ve got to do this again?” – and the answer is yes. To ensure that you keep achieving the goals you’ve set, it’s important to keep reviewing your data on a regular basis – and definitely during and after every campaign that you run. This provides you with up-to-date insights which you can use to pinpoint whether or not your actions have achieved the results you were aiming for. Digital marketing very rarely ends up being a one-time effort and often requires adjustments, which is why it’s crucial to continue to improve your online presence through actionable data-led insights.

Unsure about what you’re looking for in Google Analytics when it comes to collecting data? Check out our blog on The Metrics – What to look at in Google Analytics for some top tips. You can also check out the Google Garage topic on turning data into insights for a comprehensive lowdown, including understanding the data cycle, managing numbers, and presenting data effectively – it was written by a bunch of absolute know-it-all data experts… *ahem*… so you’re in good hands.

Yumna Kumran

Yumna Kumran

Digital Creative

Follow us on social media for blog updates and more kick-ass learning content to grow your digital skills!
Using Social Media for Customer Service

Using Social Media for Customer Service

Using Social Media for Customer Service in light of many big brands leaving social media, we look into why they should maybe stay   There is no denying that social media has changed the way we interact with businesses online a great deal. So why are so many...

WTF is PPC?!

WTF is PPC?!

WTF is PPC?!

it really does do what it says on the tin…

The world is full of abbreviations, and it’s easy to get FOMO when it feels like they’re being kept on the DL.

The marketing world is, OFC, full of its own vocab of abbreviations – from CPC and PPC to GTM, UTM, and SEO – but there’s no reason to get overwhelmed, we’re here to help.

You’ve probably guessed by the title of this blog that we’re going to be focusing on one particular abbreviation today – PPC. When it comes to the digital marketing foundations you’ll probably want to put in place for your online presence, PPC forms a core part – the paid part.

PPC, which stands for pay-per-click, is a form of paid search marketing which allows people to advertise in the sponsored listings of the SERPs search engine results pages). At its core, PPC works by accruing costs based on how many times an ad is clicked on. Someone clicks on the ad, and you get charged. No clicks, no charge.

PPC can be a great tool for getting the message out there about a brand or product in an almost instantaneous way, and if you’re lucky enough to find low CPC (cost-per-click) then you can see great ROI (return on investment). However, it’s not always that simple.

How does it work?

PPC works based on relevance, allowing you to show a targeted ad when someone searches for something specific – whether that’s a product or service. For example, if someone searches for ‘red high heels’, and that’s your speciality, you can show an ad that will appeal to a person currently on the hunt for the perfect pair of red heels.

Most PPC ads, shown through Google, Display Network and Search Partner sites, are run through AdWords – Google’s ad system. Businesses of all shapes and sizes can use AdWords to create, optimise and run ad campaigns, setting a budget to pay for when someone clicks on the ad. You can also run PPC ads through the Bing Ads platform if you want to appear on the Bing and Yahoo search engines; while seen as less popular, experts say that Bing Ads can be less competitive and offer cheaper CPCs, meaning they shouldn’t necessarily be ruled out.

The pros of PPC

PPC has a lot of pros if you’re doing it right. One of the most appealing factors for people who choose to go down the PPC route is the speed with which it has an impact. PPC is, quite simply, the fastest way to get to the top of the SERPs and get your brand out there. But that comes at a price.

Some industry experts say that, for the best chance of acquiring that all-important click through to your landing page, you need to appear in the top five results on the SERPs. With organic results being notoriously difficult to crack, and slow to see progress, paying to appear in the ads at the top of the results page is a surefire way to get in front of your customers – quickly.

The cons of PPC

As we mentioned though, this does come at a cost, meaning that it can prevent smaller businesses or start-ups without the budget from getting involved.

Plus, even if you do have the cash to splash, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re going to be winning at life. Depending on the industry that you’re in, it can be really competitive – with multiple businesses bidding for the top spot on the same terms. This means that staying on top of account maintenance and making little tweaks is key for keeping the conversions coming and the costs down.

If you are competing for the top spot with another business, then the ad platform will look at factors other than how much you’re willing to pay. Commonly, this includes Quality Score, which is when your ad is given a score out of 10 based on relevance, how good the landing page is, and click-through-rate (CTR). The platform may also take into account Ad Extensions, which can improve a user’s experience, and therefore be more preferable.

IDK, do I need it?

So, should you invest in PPC? Well, that depends. If you’ve got a little bit of budget and some time to commit to maintaining and optimising your ad account, then PPC can be a great way to make a big impact fast. But that doesn’t mean it’s your only option on the road to success.

Now you can no longer thing WTF?! To PPC. You’re an expert baby! But if you’re still thinking WTF?! To UTM and ToV then we’ve got you covered

Check out our recent blog where we let organic and paid search battle it out to see who gets the crown – spoiler alert, no one did.

Want to know more about PPC? We can help with that, too. Our Intro to PPC course is all about the theory behind PPC, as well as how you can set it up and start running your own campaigns like a pro. Check it out. YOLO.

Amber Vellacott

Amber Vellacott

Content Marketing Lead

Follow us on social media for blog updates and more kick-ass learning content to grow your digital skills!
Using Social Media for Customer Service

Using Social Media for Customer Service

Using Social Media for Customer Service in light of many big brands leaving social media, we look into why they should maybe stay   There is no denying that social media has changed the way we interact with businesses online a great deal. So why are so many...

Organic vs Paid search – who comes out on top?

Organic vs Paid search – who comes out on top?

Organic vs. Paid Search: Who Comes Out on Top?

where should I concentrate my time and efforts?

For businesses making their way into the modern world, getting to grips with online marketing has become essential. This means finding out ways to get your website in front of the right people at the right times, and appearing in search engine results when they’re on the hunt for answers.

 

Simple, right? Well, not always. When it comes to digital marketing, there are tons of different avenues you can take to get to that final destination in front of your customers – and not all routes are born equal. With these different avenues, you can boil them down to two key areas – organic and paid search. But which ones better? And where should you focus your efforts?

 

 

Wait, what’s the difference?

Let’s start by talking about what they actually are. When we talk about organic we don’t mean chemical free – we mean results that are decided based on the quality of the site, as determined by search engine algorithms. With paid search, these results are bought rather than earned, and appear alongside their organic counterparts.

Now, you may be thinking “well, one’s free and one isn’t – so that’s the benefit” – and while that is in some sense true, it’s not quite that simple. Organic marketing is a long-term strategy based around getting traffic through to a site, thanks to great content, awesome testimonials, and other white hat tactics that focus on simply making a great website. As a result, it can take months before organic marketing has any major impact on a site’s rankings – meaning you need to be in it for the long haul in order to get the most out of organic SEO.

With paid search, the opposite is true. This tactic is all about getting your message out there and getting people to convert. Paid search is all about the quick wins – the instant gratification. While that’s always appealing, there are costs attached. The success of a paid campaign is largely down to how much money you can funnel into it, meaning higher upfront costs – and a potential blocker for small or start up businesses. Plus, you need to take the time to optimise your ads; once you’ve got it right, your CPC will decrease, your CTR will increase, and everyone will be happy. But getting to that point isn’t always easy, particularly if you’re new to the paid world.

While some stats show that PPC visitors are 50% more likely to buy than organic visitors, 70% of clicked search results are organic – so if your website is super optimised and enticing, it doesn’t mean investing budget is the only way to get people to pay you a visit. Plus, when it comes to paid search, the second you stop investing that budget and fuelling the fire, your traffic will drop. Stop bidding, and people stop clicking. With other organic tactics – like SEO and content marketing – you should still see a trickle of traffic to your site even if you take a break, although they’re definitely not ‘set and forget’ strategies – you’ll need to give them some TLC to keep them working well.

 

To pay, or not to pay?

So, which one do you invest your time and money in? Well, the short answer is both. The sweet spot for businesses online is finding a way to use paid and organic search in blissful harmony. Paid tactics are great for getting your digital activity off the ground, while investing in a long-term organic strategy means that, as your site authority starts to improve, and your success metrics start to rise, you can reduce your paid budget and rely more on the organic activity.

With search engines moving slower than your Mum’s one-finger typing, PPC can give you the boost you need to get moving ASAP – with your organic activity building momentum in the background, getting ready to take over and snowball away.

93% of online experiences start with search engines, so making your mark on those all important SERPs is essential. Whether you were planning on splashing the cash, or thinking about investing in a long-term content-led strategy to bring you digital glory, taking the time to consider how paid and organic search can support each other is a sure-fire way to get the best out of both worlds. You see, in the digital world, you can have your cake and eat it. Now you know why we love it here.

Want to know more about organic SEO, or getting started with pay per click ads? Well, you’re in luck. Check out our upcoming Intro to SEO and Intro to PPC courses to find out how you can use these techie tools to your advantage. There might even be cake…

Liz Quinn

Liz Quinn

Digital Creative

Follow us on social media for blog updates and more kick-ass learning content to grow your digital skills!
Using Social Media for Customer Service

Using Social Media for Customer Service

Using Social Media for Customer Service in light of many big brands leaving social media, we look into why they should maybe stay   There is no denying that social media has changed the way we interact with businesses online a great deal. So why are so many...

How to create character personas for your business

How to create character personas for your business

How To Create Character Personas For Your Business

how to create and use character personas and audience research

Do you know your audience? You might think you do, but understanding your audience involves a lot more than simply knowing who might be interested in what you offer. Let’s define your character’s persona…

In marketing, it is all too easy to think of audiences as demographics or numbers, but doing so strips away the behaviours and actions of your audiences – which can greatly shape your overall strategy.

Do you know what part of your business they might be interested in? Do you know where you can find these people online? Do you know the challenges they face, that your business or service could solve?

If you can’t answer these questions, then you probably don’t know your audience as well as you should.  Don’t fret though, we’re on hand to give you the definitive guide on how to create character personas for your business.

What is a character persona?

The best way to describe a character persona is its sort of like an imaginary friend. The only difference is that you want these imaginary friends to be based on real people and research. Put simply, you want your character persona to embody the traits of real customers. Doing so will allow you to build up an image of people who might be interested in your business – which you can then use to better target them.

Why do I need character personas?

So, we hear you asking – why do I need to understand my audience in such intimate detail? Let’s take an example. Pretend you own a bakery. It’s safe to say your business is going to target people who enjoy cakes and pastries. That’s great, but nearly everyone enjoys a good cake or pain au chocolat. You instead need to start looking into who is interested in the products you offer in more detail.

Maybe a potential customer is an early morning commuter looking for a sweet snack to keep them company on their journey. Maybe they’re a mother looking for a personalised cake for their son’s upcoming birthday. Or, perhaps they’re a business looking to purchase a large number of cupcakes for all their staff to say thanks for a job well done. Whoever your potential customers are, having a deeper understanding of who they are can allow you to better tailor your content and campaigns to ensure you’re reaching the people who are interested in your business right from the word go.

Ok, so how do I find out who these people are?

You probably already have a vague idea of the types of people who would be interested in your business and this can be a great starting point for your research. If your business has a website and you have set up tracking and analytics, this can also be a great way of understanding your potential customers. Do make sure to take any analytics data with a pinch of salt though – there’s no guarantee that everyone who visits your site is interested in what you have to offer.

Outside of analytics, there are many different avenues of exploration. One way is through questionnaires. These are a great way to gather information as it allows you to go straight to your customers for feedback. There is a massive gap between what separates a good questionnaire from a bad one though. Consider what you actually want to learn from your customers and work that into your questions. Asking how good they think your service is is good, but asking how your service could be improved is even better as you will be able to gain a better understanding of what your customers want from your business.

What about social media?

Everyone is on Facebook these days, so start by looking for groups and communities based on your industry. Looking back at the bakery example, you could search Facebook for baking groups or pages where people share cooking recipes. Have a quick look at the type of people who are part of these groups and try to gain an understanding of the type of conversations they’re having by looking through the group’s post history.

However, not all social platforms may be relevant to your business’s research. LinkedIn may not be the best place to find customers for your bakery – but it might be the perfect place for your security company looking to find directors/managers that might be looking to install some new security for their own business. As a general rule of thumb, LinkedIn works well for B2B, while Facebook is more suited for B2C, but don’t be afraid to experiment during your research.

I’ve done my research, now what?

Good job, now you can start putting your character personas together! There are different ways to go about this, but the simplest way would be to put together a document or presentation for all of your personas, with each slide dedicated to each potential customer. While there isn’t a definitive number of profiles you should have, a good number to aim for is between 3-5, although this may vary depending on how much information you have collected.

Start each profile with the basics. Create a name for each person as well as their age, location, salary and any other bits of basic info that may help build up a better image. You could also include an image of what you imagine this person would look like. When it comes to digital marketing, it can also be handy to think about how often those personas are likely to interact with digital media – whether that be by reading a blog, checking out the latest news or scrolling through social media. Understanding this will give you an idea about what the best platforms are for your marketing messages, as well as how large or small your potential windows for opportunity are!

Now comes the harder bit. Using the information you have gathered try to understand what these customers want, and how you can go about giving them exactly that. Identify their goals – what exactly is this person looking for? Then explain how your products/service can help them complete their goals. This isn’t always going to be a simple process, so note down any challenges you feel your persona may encounter along the way. If you’re running a bakery, maybe this particular person wants a cake but is gluten intolerant, or perhaps they have a limited budget, so are only able to spend a certain amount. If you conducted a questionnaire, you might be able to pick some of these challenges up from some of your feedback.

Other things you may wish to include are the types of questions your customer is likely to ask during their own research. These questions will likely be linked to their own challenges, so going off the previous example, a question may be “Where can I buy gluten-free cakes?” If you know what your customers want answers to, you can then build content and campaigns based on solving their problem. In this case, the bakery could look into making a range of gluten-free cakes, which they could then promote on social media or through recipe-based content on their website.

Conducting research and building character persona’s may feel like a long process, but it’s worth it. If you can understand who your audience is and what they want, you can ensure they come to you looking for a solution – and not someone else.

 

Do you create character personas for your business? Will you be after reading this guide? Drop us a message on Twitter if you have questions.

Now you’ve got a character persona, it’s time to work out your tone of voice – not sure what that is? Read this blog for some guidance.

Liz Quinn

Liz Quinn

Digital Creative

Follow us on social media for blog updates and more kick-ass learning content to grow your digital skills!
Using Social Media for Customer Service

Using Social Media for Customer Service

Using Social Media for Customer Service in light of many big brands leaving social media, we look into why they should maybe stay   There is no denying that social media has changed the way we interact with businesses online a great deal. So why are so many...

Optimise your webpage

Optimise your webpage

Optimising Your Website For Search Engines

pimping your webpages for the benefit of search engines such as Google and Bing

Got a super sexy webpage taht’s not getting the traffic it deserves? Poor webpage 

Sometimes it just needs a helping hand to make it that bit more appealing to a search engine, and we’re here to help you pimp your page.

Known as on-page optimisation, there are changes you can make to your websites individual pages that can help search engines understand what it is you’re trying to say. It’s like texting each other with no context and hoping the other one gets it. (Spoiler alert, no one ever gets it!)

The things we’re going to quickly cover in this blog are; meta tags and title, headings and the page copy. Let’s break them down so you can help each webpage smooth talk a search engine.

Meta tags and title

These two things, you’ll never see on the page unless you were looking at the code (don’t, it’s scary!). Essentially, they’re embedded messages that’ll help the search engine determine what is on the webpage.

The title and the meta description are the bits you see on a search engine results page, quite literally the title of the page and the little description that lets you know what sort of thing you’re going to find on the page.

If you were selling digital marketing training, you’d want to make sure the phrase ‘digital marketing training’ is in both the title and description, placing it within the copy to make it fit and describe what the page is about.

The title should be short, sweet and to the point. Use the description to explain what the page is about. The description should be able two short sentences/150 characters and reinforce the title by using the keyword/phrase again – in this instance, ‘digital marketing training’.

Considering these are the things that appear in the search engine results pages, you need to consider both Googles algorithm AND the way a searcher will see/read/digest the result. Don’t just keyword stuff in the title, remember it’s got to draw in a potential customer.

excited new girl GIF

Headings and copy

Let’s start by remembering that primarily, you’re writing for people. Keyword/phrase stuffing into the copy of your webpage in an attempt to make search engines understand what it’s about won’t work! They’ll find you a bit clingy, not so cool anymore, and mark you as spam. Website traffic will see it as an instant turn-off, not really wanting to investigate further due to your obsessive use of the word/phrase.

A great rule of thumb would be to stick between two to five mentions of your keyword, dependant on the length of the copy of course. Length of your copy is subjective and varies depending on the business, product, and intention – but no one likes a mass of text!

To maximise the value and relevancy of your individual webpage, you should include your keywords/phrases in <H1> heading tags. Using title tags is a great way to provide a page hierarchy for search engines and also a great way to break up the copy of your page, provide structure and make it easier to digest for website visitors. It’s kinda like the bigger it is, the more Google wants to look at it…

There’s no limit on the amount of <H1> headings you can have on your page, Google said so. That sounds super appealing from an SEO point of view, yeah. But it won’t look nice to the user, will it? And remember, they’re your primary audience!

google GIF

Introducing elements into your webpage to make it all that more appealing to search engines will involve you using a little bit of creativity. That caring touch that everyone can enjoy, mixed with the important bits that Google desires of your webpage.

It’s easy peasy to pimp your page and make search engines like them. Let us know how you get on but if you have any other questions, pop us a message on Twitter or Facebook.

Want to learn more? Check out our WTF?! series.

Amber Vellacott

Amber Vellacott

Content Marketing Lead

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Using Social Media for Customer Service

Using Social Media for Customer Service

Using Social Media for Customer Service in light of many big brands leaving social media, we look into why they should maybe stay   There is no denying that social media has changed the way we interact with businesses online a great deal. So why are so many...