A simple introduction to on-page and off-page SEO factors

With every website vying for a moment in the spotlight, and viewers becoming more discerning between the value of various websites, the subtleties of search engine optimisation has become crucial in ensuring your websites visibility. By reading through this infographic, you can review 16 success factors which will affect how your website is ranked by search engines and increase web traffic to your page. Most factors are grouped under on-page optimisation which is directly from your own website -and a little forethought-, through the use of title tags, Meta descriptions, keyword density and many other factors. This can easily be used in your favour if you’re keeping up with your keyword research, and are ensuring sufficient volume is there. Off-page optimisation is the site awareness you are able to create, by creating listings, producing content and promoting your website in the public forum. This is…

It's best to test these 4 design elements before using them across your site

It’s real easy to jump on the band wagon and employ design and usability elements that everyone else is using. But have you done your research to see if those elements could be detrimental to your conversions? Before you leap, here are a few elements that should be considered before implementing them.

1. Rotating Picture Sliders

Slids or carousels, often used on a home page can make a dull site feel more flashy and active. And they make the most of a websites limited space above the fold by displaying several messages. Perfect. Right? Well, not exactly. A study by usability expert, Jakob Nielsen , revealed that participants found it extremely difficult to answer even the simplest of questions when it came to the marketing messages in rotating picture sliders or carousels. [video width="692" height="479" mp4="//www.smartinsights.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/2016-01-11_14-54-58.mp4"][/video] Participants simply couldn’t grasp each message when…

Twitter tweaks timeline to show most engaging Tweets top

Importance: [rating=3] (For Marketers using Twitter) Recommended source: Twitter's blog Twitter has been grappling with a series of problems of late. Falling share price, stagnating user growth and some high profile exits from some of the top brass. It's looking to re-invigorate itself, and has decided to do so by introducing a sprinkling of the magic that has made Facebook's newsfeed one of the most powerful forces in the world of digital marketing. I say magic, I mean algorithms. This doesn't mean that Twitter is doing away with the chronological ordering of Tweets, that would be a big mistake given that it is what sets Twitter apart from other social networks such as Facebook. Instead it will use an algorithm to decide which Tweets you are most likely to care about (based on past interaction with the account there from). Then when you log into Twitter…

With the majority of email now read on smartphones, to be effective, your emails have to stand out from the crowd

There are a lot of boxes to tick to design a successful email. It needs to be on brand, it needs to stand out, it needs to work on multiple devices and it needs to deliver enough value that customers don’t just hit unsubscribe when it arrives. The design also needs to be effective on a mobile inbox. As the latest stats from Litmus on Email reading platforms show, over 50% of email opens are on mobile. A lot of things can go wrong. But with the channel still delivering higher ROI than any other – an average of £38 for every £1 according to the DMA - getting it right can have incredible results for your business. So, where do you start? Here are 5 key steps to designing an email…

Debunking the misconceptions that may prevent you investing wisely in strategies and resources while creating Social Media Campaigns

As many as 72% of all internet users are active on social media, with 936 million daily active users of Facebook worldwide, one billion YouTube users and 270 million active Twitter users. And these figures are only growing each day. Given these statistics, it’s no wonder why social media has become the fuel driving the modern marketing machine. But, there is a lot of competition - just check out the Smart Insights infographic of the number of posts, tweets and status updates in 60 seconds. It's understandable that there are many myths and misconceptions about how to use best social media to draw traffic to your sites, generate leads and boost conversions. Sadly, a fair share of marketers follow wrong practices and end up wasting their valuable time and resources on social media…

Your menus may be letting you down. Here's how to perfect them

When businesses are looking to understand why their websites aren’t performing effectively or reviewing options to convert more visitors as part of a CRO programme, they should take a hard look at the different types of navigation they are providing. If some visitors can’t find their way around a website, or more importantly find what they are looking for, then a pretty website is useless to them. The primary and secondary navigation menus are the key to getting visitors effectively around a website. Without an effective navigation menu in place, businesses risk confusing and frustrating their visitors. More importantly, they risk losing conversions and sales. So how do businesses keep that from happening? This article will go into detail on how to create an optimal navigation menu that effectively helps visitors find their way around.

Choosing Buttons

To start, businesses must choose buttons that will be…

Most product launches are complete failures. This product launch example shows the ingredients for a succesful launch

In fact, it’s been reported that about 70% of all new product launches fail within the first year.1 While product launches require input from many teams, if anything goes wrong the blame always points to the marketing team. While most marketers chase after proving ROI—as they should—some clearly overlook the need to get the product out the door in the first place. So what’s the challenge with product launches? Whether it’s underestimating demand, skimping on the market research, or failing to educate consumers on a new category—as marketers, we’ve all been there. A number of factors can spoil even the most thought-out product launches.

How influencer marketing and research helps overcome product launch dilemmas

When it comes to launching a new product, influencer marketing is your secret weapon. The practice helps you tap into niche influencers already…

A quick-fire guide and glossary to the essentials of Programmatic Marketing

Programmatic is a very hot topic in the world of marketing right now. As Ad Age points out, the advertising industry is on a journey toward widespread automation, and programmatic marketing which gives marketers the opportunity to purchase advertising more efficiently and - given the right data - more effectively, too. As a relative newcomer to the world of Programmatic Marketing, I was overwhelmed by the amount of definitions and TLAs (Three-letter acronyms) involved with programmatic. Trying to get to grips with programmatic can really make your head spin! I therefore thought I might be an ideal person to provide a hopefully simple introduction to programmatic for anyone looking to understand this marketing technique for the first time. [si_guide_block id="67100" title="Download free resource – Programmatic Marketing Brief" description="Learn the key questions to ask when managing Programmatic."/] As a follow-up to Rob’s definition…

Google are proactively asking business owners to keep their Knowledge Graph information up-to-date, by directly suggesting edits.

Importance: [rating=3] (Webmasters and "Official Representatives") Recommended source: Successful SEO Guide In an interesting move, Google have begun to ask people who they deem as "Official Representatives" of a topic, if they would like to request changes to the Knowledge Graph card. It came to my attention yesterday when SEJ published a tip from a reader, that when signed into a Google Account associated with a Google My Business page, the below option appeared.   Clicking edit, will move you onto this screen... Once the edits have been made, these are then passed onto Google for moderation and review. Once cleared, the edits will be updated to the Knowledge Graph.

How are you recognized as an official…

Explaining how modelling of marketing outcomes can let you make smarter marketing decisions

As 2016 gets under way we're seeing more discussion of the applications of Predictive Intelligence. It’s a nascent field, but one that is gaining popularity fast and for some very good reasons, which we will discuss in a lot more detail in this article. We’re going to start this article off by explaining what precisely Predictive Intelligence is, we’re then going to provide some hard stats on its impact in the marketing world so far and are going to finish off by explaining how we feel it’s set to shape marketing in 2016 and beyond.

What Is Predictive Intelligence?

Despite the buzz surrounding Predictive Intelligence, many still don’t know what it actually is, so here is our definition. Predictive…