Category: Digital Marketing

Are you wondering how to get more backlinks to your website? Thankfully, there are plenty of ways which you can learn more and deepen your knowledge. You do not need to be the most skilled person to build some backlinks for your site, anybody can do it with a little bit of help. Therefore, we have some tips for you!

What Are Backlinks?

Backlinks are links which go from one website to another. They are also known as inbound or incoming links in SEO practices. In other words, if somebody places a link to your website on their site or page, you will have a backlink from them, visa vera.

links from one website to a page on another website. Google and other major search engines consider backlinks “votes” for a specific page. Pages with a high number of backlinks tend to have high organic search engine rankings.

Pensive male customer looking away at copy space, touching chin, thinking. Handsome young man in casual shirt and glasses standing isolated over white background. Advertising concept

Why are they important?

Most of the time the major search engines tend to class backlinks like a voting system. The more backlinks you have the more useful and engaging your website is to the audience. So, a pattern which is sometimes seen is that those with higher amounts of backlinks tend to rank higher on the search pages.

The higher your website’s ranking is on the major search engines will also lead to multiple other results. These may include more visibility to an audience, which could lead to more conversions and so on.

How Can You Get Them?

Backlinks do not just magically appear one day, you have to put in the work to get them. But, how exactly can you get them?

Writing good quality content

There is a big difference between good quality content and poor quality content. So much so it could even impact the number of backlinks you receive. Typically, when companies are writing content, they may take part in some kind of content curation to find out more information and get some ideas. In this case, if a company likes your work they might use some of your content and link to your website, creating a backlink. But, if your work is not link-worthy and desirable, this will not occur.

Comment on other relevant blogs

Blog commenting is a simple and easy way which you can create your own backlinks. Finding relevant blogs which relate to your work gives you the opportunity to promote your business by leaving a message and link in the comments. As well as leaving a backlink this tactic will also increase your exposure.

Broken link building

The web is filled with broken links, giving you the chance to focus on broken link building to bring more backlinks to your site. It is a tactic which allows you to find a broken link on the web and recreate the content. If the link has other sites already linking to it, you can then get them to link to the new information. Therefore, this will build more links.

Tags backlinks, Business Growth, Content, create backlinks, Hive Digital Media, SEO

When trying to gather a better understanding of digital marketing and what it entails, you do not want to spend your time searching through different websites go find individual answers. Therefore, we have put together a list of common digital marketing questions and answers for you to read. This way, you will be able to deepen your knowledge in one place.

Search Engine Optimisation

Search engine optimisation is an essential part of digital marketing, but why? Why is it so valuable and important to business in today’s society? Below is a list of SEO related questions to you can get a better idea of search engine optimisation.

What is SEO and why is it important?

SEO is the process of upgrading and optimising the content throughout your website to attract more traffic to your website. It is also used to increase and boost your websites ranking on search engines such as Google, Bing and Yahoo making it crucial for the long term.

Should I create an SEO strategy plan?

Whether your business is big or small, an SEO strategy plan is essential. You could be years into a successful business or even days into a new one, whatever the duration, a plan will benefit you. Although, before you make one you need to understand how, why and what aspects you need to include. This way you have a rough idea of what to do before you begin.

What should I include?

Keywords – Search keywords which rank for your topic
Look at your competitors and your target audience
Build pages for each ranking topic and optimised content
Link building – Backlinks
Social media
SSL certificate

These are some of the aspects you could include in your SEO strategy plan for 2020, although, there are plenty more things you can add too.

Social Media

If you are trying to grow your brand, social media is the perfect place for you to gain a new/bigger audience. With millions of people scrolling on each platform each day, you are bound to increase your traffic with the right strategy.

What are different platforms good for?

Different social media platforms will give you different results. Some might give you better results than others, some might bring you a different target audience and others may not work at all… but which are which?

Facebook – Facebook has approximately 2 billion monthly active users, meaning you will be able to interact with your target audience no matter what. The platform allows businesses to customise their target to make it more specific to its users. It is great for maintaining customers and building relationships.

Twitter – Although Twitter is not one of the most popular platforms, it is still used by hundreds of millions of people each month. Twitter is great for reaching a new audience and creating more conversions for your business. Before putting your time and money into Twitter you should ensure that it is the right platform for you.

LinkedIn – Typically used for connecting with other people, organisations and B2B businesses. This platform tends to have a specific audience of those between the ages of those who work 9-5 jobs.

Which platform is better for my company?

This depends on what type of company your business is, how it works and who you are trying to reach.

As mentioned above if your business is a B2B organisation, you are best focusing on those platforms which allow you to interact with other professionals. An example is LinkedIn.

Whereas if your business is more of a B2C organisation and you are trying to connect with direct customers, platforms like Facebook will be a better option.

Content Marketing

Content marketing is also another important aspect of digital marketing. It allows you to interact and educate your audience with the necessary information, which will result in relationship building. Here at Hive Digital Media, we offer the service of content marketing. We specialise in working with different businesses to create outstanding content to connect target audiences to brands.

What are the benefits of content marketing?

Content marketing has multiple benefits for your company, some of them include:

Increased Sales
Increased brand awareness
Higher volume of traffic

How can I create new content regularly?

There are plenty of sites which allow you to use photos on their website which are copyright free, this way you will not be breaking any laws when promoting your business. If you are looking to create content from scratch then there are sites including Canva which can help you. A good way to get some ideas for your content is by using content curation. This allows you to browse and brainstorm ideas from other businesses content.

Tags Content Marketing, Digital Marketing, Hive Digital Media, Increased Brand Awareness, SEO, Social Media

Although fancy advertising, publicity and paid promotions are all very good ways of growing your business they are not necessarily the best way to do it. This is because there are plenty of other ways in which you can organically grow your brand at either a very low cost or for free. You just have to find the right way for you and your brand. So, we have put together a list of ways you can organically grow your brand.

Using HashTags

Using hashtags on social media will push your content out to a wider audience. This way you will attract new customers and grow your online presence. Hashtags are becoming more and more used on the Internet and on social media as they have been proven to bring in more views, likes and followers to your website or social page.

The great thing about hashtags is that there are specific times that your hashtags may be trending. Therefore if you base your posting around them times, you will get more views from a wider audience, hopefully increasing conversions or engagement.

Consistent Posting

Whether you’re posting on social media, blogs on the website, or even about new products, you should make your posting consistent. This doesn’t necessarily mean that you need to post four times a day, every single, day. It just means that you should post at the same time on the same day, every time you post. For example, if you are posting a YouTube video, you should set a specific day of the week which you will post. This way the people who keep on top of your content will be able to recognize and understand when they should be looking out for your content.

You could also try to base your posting on the most popular times to post. These can be found in the analytics section of your pages. You should be able to see the best times for you to post depending on when your followers are most active. Although if you’re just starting out, or you have a low following, it might be best for you to stick to the most popular times to post depending on your location.

Connect with followers and customers

This is another great way to grow your following and your audience. People love to be interacted with, in other words, if you share a conversation with a follower, they are more likely to prefer your brand to a brand that does not interact with them. Building relationships with customers is an essential task you should do when trying to grow your brand organically. This does not necessarily mean that you need to privately message every single one of your followers. But, instead, why not post content they can either relate to or interact with. This way they will allow them to feel like your brand values the audience.

Invest in your website

The website which looks the part is a great way to kickstart the growth of your company. To start off with nobody likes to use a website that is confusing or full of advertisements. Therefore making your website look attractive, feel attractive, and be easy to use is a great way for you to begin growing your business.

But the look and feel of the website is not the only reason you should invest in a website. One of the most important aspects of the website is search engine optimisation (SEO). You should try to optimise your content as much as you can to help you rank higher on search engines. Here at Hive Digital Media, we focus on not only SEO but also website development to help your website be the best it can be.

Know your competiton

Keeping on track of what your competition is doing in the industry is a great way to plan out what you can do. This will enable you to stand out from the crowd and be unique when it comes to what your audience wants to see. This will lead them to hopefully see something different in your brand and allow them to choose you over all of your competition.

For more information on our services here at Hive Digital Media, click here.

Tags Business, Grow your brand, Hive Digital Media, marketing, Social Media, Social Media Marketing

As the whole of England has been confined to their homes for the past few months, you might be wondering, has the use of social media marketing increased during this period? Teenagers especially tend to spend a lot of time on social media. The lockdown has taken the usage to the next level. This offers businesses the best opportunity to promote their brand whilst there is a higher percentage of people using social media.

Different Platforms

Global Internet traffic rose 40% due to the COVID-19 pandemic, essentially cramming more than a year’s worth of growth into just a few weeks, according to Sandvine.

Social media ads are a great way to get your content out to people all over the world with only a few clicks. If you are active on the most popular social media platforms you will understand a little bit more about how the ads work on specific sites.

For example on Instagram ads Appear not only in the feed but also in the stories. This gives your brand a better chance of being seen by a wider audience. When you see an ad on platforms like Instagram, they appear just like an image posted by a friend, meaning, they will be seen if somebody is just casually scrolling.

Whereas YouTube presents ads in various different ways like at the beginning of a video, at the side, underneath or even on top of the video. They are all different ways to catch users attention without impacting their use of the site too much. This technique allows the user to interact with the ad at any time depending on its position.

Therefore more and more brands have started advertising on social media during the pandemic. This is mainly due to the high amount of people using different platforms. But, also because other ways of advertising are not available at this time. Therefore many brands have to switch up their advertising techniques. To allow them to still get traffic to the sites and pages.

What social media platforms are the best?

The social media platform which you choose entirely depends on your brand. You should consider the results that you are wanting to find. Typical things you should consider are:

Where your target customers are most concentrated (usage, groups, etc.)
Where your target customers are most accessible.
Does your target customers most actively engage with ads.

Please bear in mind that advertising on social media is not something which might bring you automatic results. It may require you to spend some time testing out different platforms or different strategies before you are able to know the best direction for your brand.

Can Hive Digital Media Help?

Here at Hive Digital Media, we offer a range of different services to help your brand grow and increased traffic. To find out more information about our services please click here. If you are wanting to get in touch our online chat located on the bottom right of our homepage.

Tags Hive Digital Media, Instagram, Quarantine, Social Media, YouTube

Almost 5 billion videos are seen every single day on YouTube meaning there are 30 million visitors every 24 hours. Therefore making YouTube one of the best sites to give your brand as much awareness as it can get. YouTube ads attract people of all ages, not just those who are young. So, whether your target audience is people over who are younger or older, the chances of you spreading brand awareness are high.

Who will you reach?

One of the great things about YouTube Ads is that your advertisement will go straight to your target audience. According to YouTube, they have various advertising pin-pointing methods to narrow down to exactly who you want. Some examples are listed below for the video marketing side of YouTube Ads:

Demographic Groups – age, gender, parental status or household income.
Interests – affinity audiences, life events, Custom intent audiences.
Detailed demographics – reach user based on additional broad, shared traits, such as students, homeowners or new parents.

Other examples for content marketing are also directly below:

Placements
Topics
Keywords

What it costs:

According to YouTube, most businesses begin with a plan which is around £6 per day for local campaigns, but you can make adjustments to your plan at any time. But, despite this being said, Google owns YouTube, therefore the price of YouTube ads involves you bidding for ad placement. This means that it is hard to give an exact figure.

There are different factors which play a part when determining the price, some of them include:

Targeting options
Your bid
Bidding selection
Ad type

Creating Your YouTube Ad

When creating your YouTube Ad you need to keep multiple factors in mind. This will include, your target audience, your budget and how you want it to look.

The look of your video needs to be one of your top priorities because if what the viewer is watching is not interesting or unique, the chances of them clicking skip when it reaches the 5-second mark is likely. Although not every brand has the facilities to hire a team to create these ads, it is still important to make it look as best as it can. The better it looks and sounds, the more conversions will occur.

These ads can be created with a small homemade budget or even a larger budget, whatever you choose, you just need to ensure it is right for your pin-pointed audience. Once you have completed a few advertisements you should consider whether your budget is perfect or not and then make some changes if necessary.

Different Ad Types

There are six different types of ads when promoting on YouTube:

Display Ads: These are displayed right of the featured image and above the suggested videos (red box).

Overlay Ads: Semi-transparent overlay ads which cover the lower 20% of the screen.

Skippable Ad Videos: These type of ads allow viewers to skip after 5 seconds. Therefore, this is why we advise you to try and make your ads as interesting and unique as possible.

Non Skippable Ads: These ads are seen before the viewer can watch the video. This type is usually between 15 and 20 seconds long.

Bumper Ads: These last around 6 seconds and must be viewed before you can watch the video.

Sponsored Cards Ads: These display relevant information at the end of a video for a few moments before the video ends.

The different types of ads also impact the price which you will pay as some are more visible than others.

Is It Worth It?

This is personal preference as you might have found a different platform which enables you to reach a better percentage of an audience which is a better deal for your money. On the other hand, you may find YouTube to be the best. Therefore, perhaps it is something which is worth trying out and if you do not get the results you want, then you can move to advertise on a different platform.

How Can Hive Digital Media Help With Your Business?

Here at Hive Digital Media we offer a wide range of services to help your business grow. For example:

SEO
Social Ads
Google Ads
Content Marketing
Web Design and Development

For further information click here.

Tags Ads, Grow Business, Hive Digital Media, YouTube, YouTube Ads

Top 3 Marketing Campaigns of 2020 (so far)

Since lockdown began on March 24^th we’ve seen some fairly spectacular ways of how not to advertise your business. Who can forget Wetherspoons Tim Martin commenting that his 40,000 members of staff should ‘go and work in Tesco instead’ or Sports Directs Mike Ashley initially keeping Sports Direct open as he classed it as providing an ‘essential’ service? These are just a couple of examples. However, some brands are getting their marketing ‘right’ during these unprecedented times. So, who’s managed to promote their brand in the right way? Here are our top 3 marketing campaigns of 2020 (so far).

IKEA

A great example of how to adapt to your audience is IKEA. By releasing the recipe for their famous Swedish meatballs IKEA tapped into their customers need for transparency during a difficult time. Yes, meatballs aren’t everything but just the act of disclosing the recipe of something that’s cherished in our collective subconscious is a stroke of genius. Other brands quickly followed suite including McDonalds sausage & egg McMuffin and Wagamama’s Katsu Curry. The point is they weren’t selling anything but the brand itself.

KFC

Their recent TV campaign using homemade KFC (including branded buckets and paper-cups) tapped into the nation’s obsession with some much-missed classics such as KFC’s Bargain Bucket and Zinger Burger. Don’t even get me started on McDonald’s – you truly don’t know what you’ve got til it’s gone.

VOLKSWAGEN

The Last Mile – Volkswagen said goodbye to their trusty Beetle with a great video accompanied by the Beatles ‘Let it Be’. The iconic Beetle can be held up as a symbol of great design, it also represents a different time. With Volkswagens commitment to producing electric cars, it seems fitting that they’ve made letting go of its classic both a nod to the past and the start of something new.

Of course, big brands can afford to take risks. For smaller businesses digital marketing is a financial investment, there is a temptation to put their marketing strategy on hold for the time being. With everyone tightening their belts it would initially make sense. However, there’s never been a more important time for your business to be visible – particularly online.

Tags Digital Marketing, KFC, Volkswagen

What to focus on?

Digital Marketing During the Pandemic

While the pandemic has made many areas of business grind to a halt, there are still opportunities to increase your website traffic and overall online presence through digital marketing.

Since lockdown began, search engines have seen an overall increase in traffic due to our increased online presence. From shopping to DIY, we are browsing more than ever. With an expanded online audience comes more opportunity for advertising and promotion. This doesn’t however, only apply to paid advertising. The Financial Times said it had seen a ten-fold increase in trial subscriptions in the past three weeks alone.

In recent years businesses have begun to realise that their website is incredibly important. If you think of your business website as the ‘shopfront’ to your business, you can start to appreciate that as the first point of contact for potential customers (or clients). Your website needs to do a couple of things, 1. Stand out visually, and 2. Be easy to use (user experience).

But where should you start? What are the essential aspects you need to focus on if you want to improve your visibility online in 2020? Here are a few;

SEO – Still one of the most critical aspects of your digital marketing strategy. Good, optimised content will always help improve your online visibility. Considered keyword analysis and research are one of the best organic routes to gaining more visitors to your website. An initial site audit will show you where you are going wrong (or right) and where any changes can be made. Given the present situation – there’s never been a better time to work on your SEO (search engine optimisation).

Native Marketing – Sick of spending a small fortune on Google Ads? You’re not alone. The explosion of native marketing in recent years (specifically Taboola and Outbrain) has seen significant changes in how businesses advertise. If you want your adverts to appear on mainstream platforms such as the Daily Mail Online native marketing is the avenue for you.

Social Media Advertising, including TikTok – unheard of up until a couple of years ago, Tik Tok is now one of the fastest-growing advertising mediums in digital marketing. If you start thinking of TikTok as the new Instagram, you’re on the right track. That doesn’t mean you should solely focus on video marketing on TikTok. Facebook & Instagram stories have seen a massive increase in traffic since they started using the facility.

Clearly the best way to move forward with improving your websites visibility is to integrate a holistic approach to your businesses digital marketing needs. A comprehensive, well thought out (and executed) marketing plan is something every business should invest in – particularly during these difficult times.

For more information on all things marketing contact our experienced, professional team at Hive Digital Media on 0161-974-7891

Let’s Talk

Tags Digital Marketing

10 Reasons an Agency is Good for your Business

If you are a marketer and even a small business owner, your ultimate goal is to grow your business. Growing your business online is one of the cost-effective ways of doing this. However, in order to do all these things, hiring people or training people in house will be really costly. This is when a Digital Marketing agency comes to your rescue.

Read on to find 10 reasons why hiring a marketing agency will be advantageous for your enterprise.

1. Complete service

Your business will receive everything to manage every aspect of your company’s online presence with full-service digital marketing. This includes advertising, marketing and promotions. A full-service digital marketing agency’s aim is to create a full strategy for your business, allowing the employees to define your KPI with it and assess how each department can work to fulfil your business’ mission statement.

2. You’ll get even better value

The process of hiring a full-time marketing executive firstly involves taking time to find the suitable person, and if you’re trying to have your strategy completed and inaction it may not be the quickest option as outsourcing a whole team of skilled individuals.

3. Tactical control

By using an agency to control your marketing endeavours, you’ll be able to receive a higher level of the tactical and strategic control your business is yearning for. In addition, the agency will update you regularly, during the advancement of your campaign and throughout the implementation process.

4. Quantitative results

A high-standard company will have all metrics measured and analysed to evaluate what’s working and the ad spend is the most productive.

5. Maintain consistency

Having an agency step in and literally continue from where the progress was left can be advantageous as it prevents delays and allows the deadlines in your business to be met, allowing your mission statement to be fulfilled.

6. Cost-effectiveness

When you’re using a full-service agency, you don’t have to bother about paying more payroll taxes. Instead, you can contact your digital partner when assistance and guidance are needed as opposed to giving wages to people who may not be always fully committed to your set marketing tasks all of the time. It’s also beneficial as you can negotiate rates with complete control over your budget

7. Fresh ideas

Using a good agency will give you great ideas and techniques that drive results for your business. For example, when it comes to social media marketing, a digital marketing agency will help you know where your target audience is mostly available and what kind of content you need to distribute among them.

8. Scalability

By hiring a marketing agency, they can scale marketing campaigns to fit perfectly with your business. Wconsishether your company is in rapid growth and expansion phase or just a steady growth phase. This allows no resources to be wasted in the process as well. Plus, scaling marketing activities may not always be possible with an in-house team unless the marketing workforce is expanded.

9. Access to technology and tools

Digital marketing agencies keep their technologies up to date, a professional agency will train their employees with the latest technologies and even keep them educated with the ways to improve. Your business’ productiveness and efficiency will dramatically increase with the latest technology and tools as they’re evolving on a regular basis.

10. No need to train agencies

In a marketing agency for your enterprise, you won’t have to fork out any capital to dispatch employees to a marketing training program or seminar.

If you would like to talk to us on how we can grow your business digitally, then just hit the ‘Let’s Talk’ button below.

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Tags Digital Marketing