Dispelling SEO Myths – SEO in Lincolnshire

online content marketing SEO

Today’s blog and accompanying video is aimed at dispelling a few myths! We have been providing SEO in Lincolnshire for years and feel it’s time to forget these myths once and for all.

I often explain to clients that as far as we are aware, there is over 250 ranking factors in the google search engine. The purpose of explaining this is to demonstrate that SEO needs to be taken very seriously. Over the years people have often asked me to take care of ranking factors that do not exist. Often based on a misguided understanding of out of date SEO techniques, or perhaps assuming that Google Analytics metrics are all ranking factors.

Bounce Rate

A good example of these mythical ranking factors would be the bounce rate of a website. This An important metric for analysing visitor activity, however not a ranking factor. This is the percentage of visitors that leave a web page without taking an action such as clicking a link or ordering a product. If this were true that google had made this a ranking factor, we would have to believe that Google can analyse this data across all of the websites ranked in the search engine but we know this not to be the case. As an experiment I could build a website and attract many organic visitors and track their visitor on visitor data on the server but Google has no access to this data until provided it and even if we were then to provide access for google analytics, the search engine still wouldn’t be able to compare that data as a ranking factor against many other websites, because they simply won’t all use google analytics.

Website Visits & Visit Duration

Another example would be directly visiting the website to boost SEO or even spending longer periods of time on the website to boost SEO. This idea suggests that more people doing these things would increase the ranking of the website when of course again that information would only be available to google if we provided it. Even this, would still exclude most of the internet not using google analytics, and people accessing their websites directly.

SEO in Lincolnshire – It’s all local!

Now for a quick reminder of the REAL SEO ranking factors. For example mobile friendliness, good social media coverage and consistent optimised content updates. Many businesses will find it beneficial to write their content around a keyphrase that includes your service/product and location. This has often proved to be a helpful search term recipe for Lincolnshire based businesses. For a visual recap of some of the content above, watch the video below. If you aren’t sure where to start, contact us. I’ve got lots of tips and tools to help but also often the most important thing is just knowing who to speak to and where to get the right advice.

Ethan’s Update: Learning Web Design, Graphic Design and Videography

Spotlight Ethan

It's Ethan here, currently enjoying my 5 day work experience with Drive By Websites Ltd. We're going to look over how I built my first website in only 4 days!

Take a look at Ethan's work...

A few words from Jack...

It's Ethan's last day tomorrow and I just wanted to take a moment to thank him for all of his hard work. Imagine joining a business and building a website, logo and video trailer all in your first week! This is a reflection of Ethan's ability to turn up and crack on.

Look out for Ethan's website tomorrow if you follow us on Social Media!

Social Videography – Quality Social Marketing

social videography

There is ever increasing demand for video content on social media. High quality social videography can help provide your followers with the content they want in a form that separates you from your competitors. Video content encourages social media engagement far more effectively than a static image. Further, your message can be far more easily and effectively communicated in detail.

For a time, one of the downsides of video content is that people would not be able to view it from anywhere like other social content. Requiring audio would make the video less effective than an image for example. This made it very important for social videography to include captions and headings that make the content less convinient to produce.

Today, social videos recieve the benefit of automatic captioning that makes watching content without audio an option. These captions have long been improved by advances in automated speech recognition (ASR) and AI technology. Find out more about Meta ASR.

Not only does it make your social content more accessible for average users, but hundreds of millions of people in the world who are deaf or hard of hearing are now able to follow every word. The convinience of social videography continues to be another benefit to businesses since live video also includes automatic closed captions for Facebook Live and Workplace Live. The live content can be translated into six languages: English, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, German and French.

Does Your Social Marketing Include Videography?

So if your business hasn’t found a space to start filming and producing your social videography content, get started today. For more advanced projects or less technology savy businesses, we can help produce high quality videos for your website visitors and social media following. We work across Spalding, Holbeach, Boston and wider South Lincolnshire for various sectors. We also take on projects for businesses across the rest of the UK and are available for remote and in person appointments to discuss your project.

Contact us on 01775 761 512

Ultimate Marketing For Christmas

DB Christmas Wreath thumbnail

Christmas is a peak time to build brand awareness and generate more visitors. Companies grab the attention of customers with the most engaging social media content, best contest ideas and unique Christmas giveaway ideas. If you want a good chance at capturing some of this extra attention for yourself, prepare/start seasonal promotions and offers ahead of time and fully embrace the festivities and fun.

  • Choose to market products and services that are easy to sell and represent your wider offering.
  • Aim to not only increase sales but customer loyalty. The same customers can be reengaged with other marketing opportunities throughout the year.
  • Embrace the Christmas spirit and maintain a strong connection with your brand. Your brand is already designed to stand out against your competitors, so don’t be shy about embracing the engaging sights and sounds of Christmas. It’s not just to add a festive touch to your social posts. Your campaign still has to set itself apart from Christmas marketing online and offline.

Marketing Ideas to Consider

A quick and easy Pay Per Click campaign on Facebook involves creating a target audience based on their online activity and engagements. To maximise results early, you can engage your customers in the weeks running up to Christmas. For example, invite all of your followers to post their favorite gift ideas or local charities, and use this information to help create a social media campaign that your followers have had a hand in. This also helps to maximise the organic reach of your later paid campaigns.

Interactive campaigns are very modern and perfect for seasonal marketing. We recently helped a client with a digital scratch game using simple QR codes. Extensions of this idea included unlockable discounts themed as Christmas Gifts or something similarly fitting. Cleverly executed discount campaigns can help to get people engaged and spending money in the run up to Christmas.

Some of the most fun or catchy seasonal campaign videos go ‘viral’. At the time of writing, the Romford M&S store team heads for the charts with their own catchy Christmas song. As noted in the article, one person in the comments said the film was better than a professional Christmas advert. Further, the release is raising money for homeless charity Shelter and Together4ShortLives which works with terminally ill children. While this is not the easiest or most comfortable idea for every team, the results can be staggering.

Need help getting started?

Drive By Websites Ltd can help you build your festive website landing pages, create your Pay Per Click campaigns, design your bespoke festive materials, send your seasonal newsletter. Whatever you need, we’re here to help. Give us a call on 01775 761512 or contact us online.

Adding Value To Your Website – From One Page To Ecommerce

online content marketing SEO

It can undoubtedly be difficult to generate new content on the same topics regularly, but we are here to remind you of a few different ways to keep your site ranking highly in Google without always covering the same ground. Some suggestions might be new to you and as always we’re here to help. Here are a few suggestions for how to rethink your website content:

  • In 2021, YouTube is quickly becoming one of the most valuable marketing platforms to share useful or engaging content with returning/potential customers. Social video content in general is easily accessible on mobile devices without the extra effort of reading or scrolling. The same is true of your website. By connecting relevant search terms to your video and connecting the content to your website, customers can discover and follow your other content and website offerings.
  • You can use your website to help limit unpredictable customer service costs such as time spent answering social media enquiries or answering calls. With this your website can help provide a service to your customers and the business itself. As an example, Frequently asked questions (FAQ) areas can be a lot of work to write but will inevitably save time and money for your business.
  • Social media content is a perfect microcosm for your target customers to help determine the effectiveness and engagement of certain topics and content. With those valuable social media insights, you can expand on topics across your website and wider social network. From there, including prominent social sharing facilities on your website content is necessary to maximise the potential for visitors to share and attract new visitors.
  • You might think of writing relevant and engaging content as the only factor in achieving maximum value for money for your advertising and marketing, however your website can turn viewers into followers by offering newsletter subscriptions, coupon/discount sign ups and membership areas. A few simple tools on your website can even make this remarkably simple.
  • Social Giveaways can be vastly more engaging on social media than traditional content and fortunately it can be just as simple to write in valuable search terms and keywords for optimising your website. Services such as kingsumo actually make it even simpler to create landing pages for your giveaways that can attract entries for likes, follows, shares and email sign ups. With a bit of integration to your website, you’ll soon be able to regularly generate hundreds of extra followers and mailing list subscribers for little extra effort or expense than traditional content marketing.

Don’t leave your visitors hanging around or bouncing off your site, spend some time extracting as much value as possible from your website visitors.

Is Content Still King in 2021?

Over half of UK marketing companies prioritise blogging as their primary content marketing strategy. Clearly generating leads online is considerably easier when producing engaging and relevant content. When this is combined with other relevant value adding strategies such as the above examples, the process of acquiring and converting visitors into customers on your website has never been as effortless. It all starts with relevant original content. If you’re struggling to generate new ideas or exposure to the right demographics, we can help with Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) or implementing techniques such as those above. For businesses that are actively exploring content marketing opportunities, give us a call on 01775 761512 or contact us online.

SEO, Social Marketing, Lincolnshire Content Marketing, Business in Lincolnshire SEO

Video Production For Websites and Social Media

Website Videos In Spalding

Drive By Websites Ltd regularly produce website and social media videos for our clients. This improves the Google ranking of websites and generally improves the content quality of a website or social media page.

Videos produced specifically for use on websites are hugely beneficial for a website's ranking in Google. Techniques differ slightly for social media, but videos are equally as effective on social media due to the high number of engagements they can produce.

Youtube For Websites

Perhaps one of the lesser known advantages is how effective Youtube is in integrating videos with websites. Many website developers choose to upload videos directory onto their websites, but this is much less effective than youtube for multiple reasons. Google and Youtube are both linked in a way that other video platforms are not. This leads to much more attractive Google listings, where self-hosted videos often don't. See example below:

Video SEO

Despite being the second result in the Google listings, many would be tempted to watch the video in the above search results. This is because the thumbnail image is only displayed for image and video results. When related to a video, thumbnail results are most commonly Youtube videos over alternative third parties.

Video Editing For Websites and Social Media

In our experience, videos featuring less detail and simpler content result in more engagements via social media. Whereas on a website the context for the video has already been established when searching Google. Social Media users are only glancing at your video for a moment as they scroll through and they are not necessarily in search for the information on offer. A website video can afford to be much more substantive in its content. This can allow for more flexibility when video editing, with a preference for professionalism and content quality over brief attention grabbing content. Take a look at these two examples:

Website Content Video

Social Media Video

The above video footage and photographs were produced by Drive By Websites and were filmed/photographed by a client using manageable techniques available to anyone.

If you would like to know more about video production for business Websites and Social Media, give us a call on 01775 761512 or email [email protected]