Your website needs to work for your business and your customers, and they need to have a good experience if Google is to rank your site highly.

SEO: Helping Promote Your Business
It is well-known that marketing is a useful method of promoting your business to garner the interest of prospective clients, partners, or society in general. Marketing takes on many forms, from brochures to commercials to Internet marketing strategies. If you own a business, a friend or colleague may have suggested that you employ SEO (search engine optimisation) to enhance your online marketing techniques. But what is SEO?

SEO is a form of Internet marketing and the goal is simple: to increase the number of qualified leads to your website by placing your website organically higher in search engine ranks. What is the benefit of this? When potential consumers search for something online, they tend to believe that the websites that appear first on the search engines are the best, and often do not look past the top few.

If SEO is not something that has ever been on your radar, you may have not given any thought to the links that appear first when you Google a specific term or inquiry. However, it is not random or magic that places this website’s atop search engines: it is an effective SEO strategy. SEO strategies are made up of both technical (link building) and creative (content building) elements aimed at improving rankings, driving more traffic to your site and turning qualified leads into closed deals.

Therefore, the goal of an SEO campaign is two-fold: to make your site both search-engine friendly and user-friendly.

In terms of making your site more friendly to the search engines, there are certain techniques that SEO companies use to bring more visitors to your site and increase the attention surrounding your brand. Search engines are constantly evolving and improving their technology to crawl the web to find relevant results for their users.

Every search engine wants its user to be able to easily find content the user is looking for; search engine algorithms essentially rank the relevance of pages and determine where to put them.

If your website ranks on the first page of Google, there is a greater probability of increased traffic than if you ranked lower.

However, converting that traffic into business for your company depends on how user-friendly the site is, based on ease of use, access to information, aesthetic design, and readability. Experienced SEO firms will know how to seamlessly intertwine the technical and creative elements of an SEO campaign to ensure that both search engines and users are attracted to your site.

If you’re looking for specialist SEO services, Direct Submit can help. We are a specialist PPC and SEO agency working with businesses across the city to optimise their online presence.

Direct Submit is different from other agencies you might have worked with before, we are a specialist Digital Marketing agency so we pour all our energy into keeping your business at the forefront of changes in SEO and in making sure you get the most from your PPC budget. We’ve been established since 2002, so we are experts in providing affordable SEO services to ensure your business’ online presence is optimised.

If you’re thinking about changing your SEO strategy, why not give us a call on 0845 272 2350 and speak to our friendly team of experts?

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A well-written landing page will convert website visitors into leads, and all while delighting them with the diverse range of content available. There’s a common misconception that writing landing page copy – and creating landing pages in general – is just a case of putting together a few words and popping a page up. However, the fact is that the process of creating a landing page that actually does what it’s designed to do – bring in leads – is a little more complex than that, and takes more time and thought.

Wondering what it takes to ensure that you’re able to achieve landing page best practice and don’t end up with a page that fails to achieve its goals? The guide below should help you to do that – have a read, take note, and implementing the suggestions in your company’s landing page strategy.

What is landing page optimisation?

Let’s start with the basics – what exactly is landing page optimisation? Simply put, landing page optimisation refers to the process of enhancing and improving various elements on your business’s landing pages to help build and increase conversations.

It may be that you already have a landing page in place – a landing page that perhaps you were extremely proud of when you first had it created – but you’re no longer sure if it is working as effectively as it should be. Or, you may have recently had a new landing page designed and aren’t quite sure how to ensure that it has been properly optimised.

A key factor to be aware of when it comes to landing page optimisation is the fact that the chances are your landing page won’t be perfect when first published. Usually, you would create a landing page, add the content, and then, as you look at the analysed data, make any necessary tweaks to help ensure a better converting landing page.

Identify potential problems before optimising landing pages

When it comes to optimising landing page content, it’s a good idea to consider identifying any problems before choosing to optimise the content. The process for identifying landing page problems is to start by identifying any specific problems plaguing the landing page – ideally, these should be problems that are contributing to the landing page’s low conversion rates.

A simple yet effective way to determine this is by using a heat map to see where people are clicking on your landing page. This should highlight the area of which that seems to be of the most interest to your website visitors – you may find that they are focusing on an area or element that lacks importance, in which case you could opt to edit this area. Once you know what the area is that seems to get the most traction, you can then opt to put the most important features in that corner.

Track website visitors’ behaviour

When it comes to determining what is and what is not working on your website’s landing pages, heat maps aren’t the only tool at your disposal. There is a wide range of options that you could consider taking advantage of, including opting to track your website visitors’ behaviour. Wondering how you can do that? Utilising tools such as scroll maps, confetti maps, overlay reports, and list reports, for instance, are a few ways that you can monitor your website visitors’ behaviour.

Take a scroll map, for instance, a scroll map can show you where scrolling actions have occurred on a page. If you notice areas of white or blue on the page, this means that this is where visitors have left the page, whereas areas of red, orange and yellow show that visitors have stopped to have a look.

What are some landing page optimisation best practices?

Be clear

When it comes to boosting your landing page conversion rates, aim to make sure that your landing page content perfectly appeals to your target demographic. What you want to do is ensure that when a customer visits your landing page, they have a positive experience – you want to make sure that they feel appreciated and inspired. Take the goal of your customers’ into account, and use that goal to create a great landing page concept.

Incorporate heading tags

It’s also important to incorporate heading tags into your landing page content. A heading tag is used to provide the page visitor with an insight into what the focus of the page is and what it contains; title tags are also important for search engines like Google. Title tags can be effectively optimised for search engines using SEO techniques. Keywords are a vital aspect of incorporating heading tags into your landing page strategy – if you want to see results you need to get the keywords right. These keywords need to be properly researched and effectively implemented into the title of the pages that you want to rank – ideally these should be added at the start of the title tag.

Add meta tag data

Meta tags are a form of code that provides information about a landing page in the HTML code – this is called ‘metadata’. While this data is not visible on the page itself, it’s incorporated into the back end of the landing page is read and used by search engines like Google and their web crawlers to help the page rank better.

Simplify your page

You might think that having a simple landing page isn’t a good move to make, however, this couldn’t be further from the truth. A simple landing page removes the clutter from your visitors and makes it easier for the concept of the landing page to be easy to visualise. You want to ensure that your website visitors are focusing on your business’s call to action.

Utilise contrasting colours

Some of the best landing pages utilise a combination of contrasting colours – you want to ensure that your landing page makes an impact on anyone who visits it.

Keep the most important info at the top

It’s important to make sure that the most important information is listed at the top of the landing page. You will find that readers don’t always read to the very bottom of a landing page, which is why you want to make sure that the important information is near the top of the page, as that way it won’t get missed.

Keep call to action buttons straightforward

A call to action button is a vital part of landing page copy, and it’s important that these buttons are presented in a simple and easy to navigate way. You need to ensure that your landing page buttons are easy to spot and clearly portray the message that they are there to get across to web page visitors.

Get the copy right

If there’s one thing that a landing page should be, it’s well-written. A landing page is a fantastic opportunity to show off your amazing copywriting skills, so make sure to take full advantage and aim to wow your readers.

If you need help with your landing page optimisation and the best practices that could help your online project succeed, then give Direct Submit then call on 0845 2722350 or visit our website to see some of the latest website design projects we have been involved in.

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Our Website Process

Phase 1 – Design
Drawing from your requirements, the design of the website is created in Photoshop by one of our designers. We’ll work closely with you during this phase, exchanging ideas until we arrive at the final design for your website. Factors such as the organisation’s brand and target audience play a key part in developing the overall visual style of the site.

By the end of this first stage, we deliver the design of the website and all subsequent pages in PDF format to be signed off.

Phase 2 – Development
During this phase, the graphic elements from the final prototype are used to develop a digital version of the approved PDF design.

You will receive a testing link to view the ongoing design & development and a framework for the website’s operation on our staging server.

Phase 3 – Population
This is the phase in which the website functionality is developed and content populated as outlined in the proposal.

For Ecommerce websites, this means adding products and set up of shipping and payment capabilities. In the case of website redesigns, content may be sourced from the previous site where applicable. If copywriting or new content is required, this will also be developed at this stage.

Phase 4 – Testing & Launch
Before site launch, testing will be carried out in staging in order to ensure that the site functions as per requirements, as well as testing for website interoperability and mobile/browser considerations. In the cases where search engine optimisation is required, this will also be performed during this phase.

At Direct Submit, we provide a comprehensive web design services that meet today’s demands in user experience, which we believe is central, to every online brand. Let our website design and development team will help you stand out in a digital-first world. Call us today on 0845 2722350 or visit our Digital Marketing website.

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Work with us today and we’ll give you a seamless, user-friendly website design.

Online Success Starts With Website Design And Development
As online competition gets fiercer, so does the need for enhanced user experience. This experience starts and ends with your website. For businesses, a website is more than just a portal of information about the product and service. It embodies your entire brand, your business in a nutshell. You set up a website not just to become visible, but to build an online presence that connects with your audience.

WordPress Web Design
Web design needs to prioritise flexible web development methods that allow for greater cross-platform integration and site security. At Direct Submit, we provide web design services for all types of businesses.

We offer user-friendly and highly customisable WordPress web design services that cater to the ever-changing needs of customers. We build websites on WordPress because it’s search-engine friendly, intuitive and easy to use.

Most importantly, WordPress website and development is a cost-effective method that is suitable for content marketing and social media integration.

Responsive And Mobile-Friendly
In this day and age, most people surf the internet using their smartphones. As of 2018 / 2019, there are over 3.7 billion unique smartphone users globally. In 2017, 49.7% of total web page views came from people using their smartphones.

With that in mind, it is crucial for developers to incorporate mobile-friendly and responsive web designs to enhance user experience and ensure traffic flow.

Direct Submit specialise in providing responsive web design services suited to all mobile devices.

Get a website that looks and works equally well across all devices. With a responsive design, a website maintains its quality and adjusts to all of types of screens: desktop, tablets and smartphones.

Search Engine Optimisation and digital marketing are the waves of the future. With user-friendly and responsive web design, there is no limit to what your business can achieve.

Discover how Direct Submit can help you do just that through search engine optimisation. Get in touch with us today on 0845 2722350, and we can work together to enhance your business, expand your client base and establish a lasting brand identity.

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While SEO is important for long-term growth and traffic, social media marketing and influencer-based marketing can still bring high amounts of traffic, which will convert into loyal, paying customers in the future. The traffic you receive from these channels is often focused and can convert exceptionally well. In this article, I assume you intend to promote a business, but of course, this counts for whatever you intend to advertise, be it a website, online store, etc.,

Social Media Marketing

Social media marketing is an excellent strategy to build a loyal customer base with whom you can communicate with on a regular basis. By creating Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest pages, these pages will soon attract fans and followers, which you can then advertise to in the near future.

If you haven’t already, make sure you create business pages for Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest. Ensure that your company logo is part of the profile photo, and that you have an enticing and unique header image. You can use Canva to create banner images, and they have a fantastic selection of sample banners you can use to get started quickly.

Next, fill out any text fields, such as you’re About section and bio of the business. Make sure to contain your business’ phone number, other relevant social media links, as well as essential contact details.

Advertising to Potential Customers

The overwhelming majority of social media users hate to see their feeds get flooded or spammed with advertising and ads from companies they follow. Therefore, you need to try a different strategy; rather than blatantly advertise your products, you need to build trust with your followers by posting appealing, intriguing content that has an entertainment value of some sort.

For example, a lot of companies post GIFs related to their domain or motivational quotes that are linked in some way to their field or create video content surrounding their products. Others parody their own products or create memes which are sure to get some laughs from their users.

However, the posts shouldn’t just be limited to the trivial, you can make posts of “Behind the Scenes” at your business, showcasing the ins and outs of how products are manufactured, and so forth. Just make sure that the content you create is dynamic and engaging; pull the viewer’s interest in and keep them hooked, with meaningful content that’s designed to inform or excite or innovate.

For companies, these pieces of content are essential for building rapport with their fanbase, and for slowly building trust with followers. That way, when they eventually do advertise their products, the uptake is going to be much higher, since users will have built momentous trust with this company and are much more likely to want to visit their website or buy one of their products.

Utilise the Power of Imagery

When creating your posts, make sure to include a colourful, attention-grabbing image, which contains the essential info presented in the post. You can create graphics with Canva, and the modern, fresh, and vibrant designs provide great templates for beginners.

If you ever post images that aren’t your own, make sure to use public domain imagery, which means it’s free to use, modify and re-share anywhere. You can include these images in any graphics you create, as well as blog posts and articles.

A great tool I recommend for this is Canva. It helps simplify the graphic design process and leads to incredible and professional resulting designs. I’ve been using it for all my blog posts and social media marketing projects.

You can also post the images you create to Instagram and Pinterest, especially if your business is in the creative or outdoors sphere. I’ve seen hundreds of companies post imagery on these sites and gain incredible numbers of likes and comments from devoted customers. Your Canva graphics can also be posted on Pinterest, and they’ll be pinned by fans in no time.

Advertise Your Content

There’s a rule in the social media marketing world, that 90% of the time you share content or post about topics related to your domain, and 10% of the time, you advertise your products or post directly about your business.

This is especially true if you want a great click-through rate; if you continually post about your business all the time, your followers are going to get bored, and with good reason. You need to keep them engaged with your company in an entertaining manner, and often, reposting or retweeting relevant news, memes, or videos related to your field is a great way to do so.

When you finally do want to let your followers know about a new product, sale, or piece of news related to your business, make sure your post contains a fantastic banner/featured image which highlights the main points of your post. This will keep your followers engaged, and could lead to better click-through rates.

Contact Influencers in Your Field

Influencers are social media personalities or celebrities with a loyal, dedicated fanbase. These influencers often advertise other businesses directly or create videos or vlogs about their favourite products; this leads to incredible traffic and lead generation for the company being advertised.

While it can be difficult to get advertised by influencers with more than a hundred thousand followers, you should target influencers with 20k followers or more, as these are contacted less frequently, and you’d have a much greater chance of striking a deal with them.

To do so, target influencers in your field by utilising BuzzSumo’s search functionality. Simply type in your company’s primary category (such as finance etc.,) and BuzzSumo will display a list of Twitter and social media influencers who regularly tweet in that field and have heavily-followed social media accounts.

You then need to get their contact details (a simple Google search will help) and write them an email asking if they’d like to promote your company on their social media profiles.

Some influencers charge hefty prices for advertising, others will do it for free if they genuinely like what your company does or have a great experience with your products. Others require that you send them your products in exchange for a review; this is another viable option if you have products you’d like to sell to online.

YouTube vloggers are also willing to promote your business in some way, usually by creating a video review of your products, or by recommending your business’ products in their videos. There are several websites online that help YouTube influencers or vloggers connect with potential clients.

Write for Large Blogs

Writing for blogs with a dedicated readership can help promote your website to those readers and help increase traffic as a result.

Often, blogs allow you to include a link to your website in the Bio section of your article, and if readers enjoyed your article, they’ll be sure to check out your website also.

Most blogs are more than happy to take guest posts from others and will gladly give a nofollow link to the author’s website in the Bio section.

How to Find Websites Looking for Writers

To find these websites, simply make a list of blogs you regularly read in the same field your website is in.

You can also search “write for us [topic]” on Google, where [topic] is the field your website is in. For example, if you have a gardening website, then search for “write for us gardening” on Google. This will return a list of blogs that are actively looking for writers to submit blog posts.

Many blogs are also hosted on Medium now, and these blogs are always looking for new writers, so make sure to check out blogs hosted on Medium also.

You should then email the blog asking about the possibility of guest posting, but make sure to include some potential titles that you’d like to write about also. Bloggers love to see that you’ve put in some research and have material or ideas already prepared; this will greatly increase your chances of the blogger accepting your articles in the future.

Even though guest posting for low-quality or “spammy” websites is heavily discouraged, you should only guest post for websites that are reputable and highly respected.  Ensure that they have an adequate readership, as there’s no point in writing for blogs that offer little in return, in terms of traffic.

Conclusion: Outreach Is Key

Building an active community of dedicated fans on social media is essential to keeping an active relationship with your readers and can ensure that your readers keep coming back for more content.

However, since those readers can share your posts, your content will also reach a greater audience, i.e.: their entire network, including family and friends. Social media can help broaden your reach, but it must be done tactfully, and remember to always be respectful of your users’ time and feeds.

As we’ve seen, utilising the power of outreach in Promoting Your Website can help you to connect with a larger audience, thanks to contacting influencers and helping them promote your content.

Guest posting is also a form of outreach and can be a fantastic way to advertise your business or website to another group.

While these methods take time, they will soon bring traffic to your website, thus increasing your business’ sales and customers. It’s a worthwhile effort, and before you know it, your website will start seeing new customers.

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In layman’s terms, domain authority is a website rating. The higher your domain authority, the better your website in comparison to other websites. Unlike SEO, a higher domain authority won’t directly affect your PageRank, but it is an indirect metric that can help you determine how your website fares compared to others. If a site has a higher domain authority, that is an indication that it will rank higher than comparable sites.

Domain authority is a metric developed by Moz. It was designed to be a prediction of a site’s rank on a search engine results page. Domain authority scores are measured from 1 to 100 and higher scores are better. A lower score means you’re less likely to have a favorable rank on a search engine. However, a lower score also doesn’t mean that your website is necessarily bad.

One of the primary drivers of domain authority is your link profile. As with SEO, the type and number of sites with links to your domain matter a great deal. MozRank and MozTrust are other metrics that go a long way to determining how high your domain authority is. Moz explains that there are many different factors that influence domain authority because it is meant to measure how a site will rank in Google search results. Google uses many factors to rank and so, too, does Moz.

Raising your domain authority can help you rank higher on a search engine results page, because the same things that raise your domain authority also improve your SEO. Improving your link profile goes a long way toward raising your domain authority. So how can you increase your domain auhority?

Number of Backlinks
Increasing the number of backlinks from quality sites will raise your score more than other factors. Keep in mind, though, that you must keep your focus on quality sites. If you use low-quality sites, it can actually hurt your domain authority and SEO.

Link Diversity
Another way to make your link profile work for you is to diversify it. If you’re getting most of your links from the same sites or types of sites, look elsewhere for new links. Consider ones with different domain extensions or locations around the world. It’s important that these sites are high-quality as well.

Internal Link Structure
Make sure you’re using strong internal links on your website. Blog posts that reference one another should be linked together. Topics that reference others you’ve written about should be linked so readers can easily get more information. A strong internal link structure can offer link juice while also raising your domain authority.

Disavow Negative Links
Sometimes spam sites or low-quality sites link to your domain without your consent. Google offers a Disavow tool that allows you to remove the connection to your site. Removing negative links can help raise your domain authority because it removes any penalty for these low-quality associations. You can also contact the websites that link to your site and ask for those links to be removed.

Optimise Your Pages
If you haven’t already optimised all your title tags, image tags, images, and content for search engine purposes, do it now. Your search engine optimisation helps improve both your PageRank and your domain authority, and therefore it is essential that your page is optimised.

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