Avoiding Pitfalls: Key Mistakes to Steer Clear of in Social Media Marketing

Avoiding Pitfalls: Key Mistakes to Steer Clear of in Social Media Marketing

Tackling social media marketing can sometimes feel a bit like navigating through London’s foggy streets – a bit mystifying but full of potential if you know the way. Here at Guided Creative, nestled in the bustling heart of St. James’s, we’ve seen a fair share of pitfalls and triumphs. Let’s pull back the curtain and have a candid chat about common blunders in social media marketing and how to avoid them, all based on our first-hand experiences with businesses just like yours.

Not Having a Clear Plan – It’s Like Setting Off Without an A-Z Map

Jumping into social media without a plan is akin to setting off on a journey without an A-Z map. Remember that local bakery around the corner? They came to us with a haphazard posting schedule and saw little in return. Once we got a solid strategy in place, they began to see real engagement blossoming on their platforms.

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The Pros and Cons of DIY Web Design

The Pros and Cons of DIY Web Design

Whenever web design is needed to create a new website, and in most cases, that will be for a business website, one of the choices that have to be made by the business owner is who is going to be responsible for it. In other words, who is going to design and build the website?

For the most part, there are three options: a web design agency, a freelance web designer, or the business owner, who may have some knowledge and even experience in website design, may choose to build the website themselves.

There are advantages and disadvantages to each of those options. Still, eventually, the choice will be between a “Do-It-Yourself” website design or hiring someone to do it, such as a web designer or a web design agency. This decision should not be taken lightly, especially if the website is for a business. That business’s success could greatly depend on how much revenue their new website helps generate.

For this reason, we thought it would be prudent to go through some of the pros and cons of DIY website design and highlight the main reasons why you could go for this option, and equally importantly, the reasons why you should not.

The Pros Of DIY Web Design

  • No Website Design Fees: One of the most common reasons business owners will decide to try and build their website themselves is that they do not have to come up with the fee to pay a web design agency or freelance web designer. It does not mean they will have no costs at all, but these are likely to be less than paying for professional web design.

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Balancing Your Time: How Much Should UK Businesses Invest in Social Media Marketing?

Balancing Your Time: How Much Should UK Businesses Invest in Social Media Marketing?

“Right, let’s talk about time and social media,” you might say, sitting comfortably in your office in the bustling heart of St. James’s, London. As you ponder over your digital marketing strategies, a question often pops up: “How much time should I be spending on social media marketing?” It’s a question we at Guided Creative hear often, and the answer, my friend, is not as straightforward as one might hope. Let’s unravel this together.

Understanding Your Unique Needs

Every business is different, and so are its social media needs. A hip new start-up in the tech sector will have different requirements compared to a well-established law firm. Your goal defines your time investment. Are you looking to build brand awareness, or are you nurturing an already engaged audience?

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3 Steps To Finding Legal Niche Keywords

Legal Niche Keywords

When trying to rank any legal sector business’s website on Google, at the core of the SEO that will be required to improve those rankings are keywords. Whether they are a single word, have two words, or are a long-tail keyword of several words, it is for these keywords that almost all your SEO efforts will be trying to rank the pages of your legal website for.

To explain why that is the case, it will help if we look briefly at how Google operates. Someone arrives on Google and types a search term. Let us use the example of “divorce lawyers in Perth, WA”. In an instant, Google will display several pages of results, called Search Engine Results Pages, or SERPs.

What Google strives for with the SERPs they generate is that the web pages on the first page of results are those most likely to be what the person searching is looking for. In this case, it is websites of divorce lawyers located in Perth, Western Australia. The way the owners of those websites convince Google to place them on that first page is SEO.

What SEO will do is optimise website pages so that they are seen as the most relevant and authoritative for specific keywords. The task that often defeats legal website owners is establishing which keywords they should and can rank for on that coveted first page of Google. It is this keyword discovery process that we are about to explain in three simple steps.

Before we do so, we must highlight that effective keyword research requires tools. We are not going to endorse a specific one here, but if you search for “keyword tools” or “keyword research tools” on Google, you will see several that are recommended repeatedly by SEO experts. Trying to do all of this manually will take significantly longer without these tools, and you will struggle to acquire much of the data you need for effective keyword research.

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10 Steps That Will Ensure Your Content Boosts Your SEO

10 Steps That Will Ensure Your Content Boosts Your SEO

When you embark upon an SEO campaign, the SEO company responsible for implementing it will discuss the work with you. The majority of tasks, such as the SEO services, will be undertaken by them in full, but others may involve contributions from you and your team. One task that is often undertaken by those in the business is the creation of content. The reason for this is those within a specific business niche will be far more knowledgeable about it than those working for the SEO company.

Undoubtedly your SEO company will advise you on the most effective ways to create your content, but to give you a head start, here is a 10-step checklist that you can use to ensure your content positively contributes to your entire SEO campaign.

Determine Who Your Audience Is And What Content They Want: Bear in mind you are creating content for those who you hope will visit your website. This is why, before creating content, you must identify your target audience first and what content suits them.

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10 Ways Commercial Storage Can Help A Small Marketing Business

10 Ways Commercial Storage Can Help A Small Marketing Business

For those who own or run a small business we are sure you look for every way in which you can make your business more successful, so have you ever considered how a commercial storage facility could enhance your business? Now, you might be thinking that as your business does not have any stock, a commercial storage unit is of no use, however, even in that scenario, there are solopreneurs using storage units as their office as it is preferable to them than operating from home.

Beyond this example, there are doubtless many business owners reading this who do have inventory and who might be seeking additional ways to help their business, so, in this blog post, we are going to outline ten ways in which renting a secure storage space can do just that.

Increased Space: One of the primary and obvious benefits of commercial storage is the additional space it provides your business for storing excess inventory, equipment, and other supplies. Small businesses often face the challenge of limited space within their own premises, or at home in the case of a home-based business, so renting commercial storage provides a simple and effective solution to this problem.

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Who Is The Top SEO In Perth, WA?

Who Is The Top SEO In Perth, WA

“Who is the top SEO in Perth, WA?” is a question that different people in Perth ask for a variety of reasons. It might be someone who works in SEO and wants to know whose results they should aspire to emulate. It could be a local publication wishing to run a story on the top local SEO experts. However, the most likely group to ask are business owners in Perth looking to hire the best local SEO expert to help them improve their website’s rankings.

For that final group, and others who may ask, all the evidence points towards Peter Brittain, the owner and managing director of SEO Perth Experts and the top SEO in Perth, WA. We will uncover much of the evidence that allows us to come to that conclusion, but first, it will help if we take a look at who Peter Brittain is and why SEO Perth Experts has become the most sought-after SEO agency, not just in Perth, but in other cities in Australia too.

In The Beginning…

Given that Google had only been in operation for a mere three years, it is safe to say that when Peter Brittain started his SEO agency in 2001, he was at the forefront of what was becoming a worldwide industry worth AUD 15 billion per year. That first agency was called SEO Perth Experts, and to this day, it is the foundation upon which Peter has built an impressive digital marketing company that traverses the entire country.

The parent digital marketing agency is called Slinky Digital, and not only does it include some of Australia’s top SEO agencies, but it also offers web design, social media management, website security, and PPC advertising services, to name but a few. Add to that the fact that many of these services are not just available to Perth’s business owners, but Peter Brittain’s Slinky Digital empire also extends to cities such as Melbourne, Adelaide, Gold Coast and Sydney.

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7 Ways To Ensure Your Employees Accept Your Office Relocation Positively

7 Ways To Ensure Your Employees Accept Your Office Relocation Positively

When you are planning an office relocation, many people can help it go smoothly. Apart from yourself, there are your new office landlords who hopefully make your business feel welcome and do all they can to make your move there a success.

Another vital part of your office relocation is the Removalists Perth company you hire, and they play a pivotal role in making the move a success. And finally, there are your employees, for whom the move will make a difference to their working life, and it is true to say not everyone will be 100% positive about that.

Nevertheless, your staff can help to make the transition from your current offices to the new ones a success, before, during and after the day of the move. However, this will not happen by magic, and so here are seven ways you can turn negativity about the relocation into positivity for the benefit of your business.

Seek Employee Opinions And Preferences Before Deciding Where You Relocate: Whilst, as the business owner, the final decision relating to the relocation will be yours, it is certainly worth seeking the opinions, thoughts, and suggestions of your employees before making that decision. If they believe you have taken their thoughts on board, they will regard the relocation more favourably than if you simply dictate what is happening.

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7 Ways To Ensure Your eCommerce Store Provides A Fantastic Customer Experience

7 Ways To Ensure Your eCommerce Store Provides A Fantastic Customer Experience

If you own or run an eCommerce store online, there are many ways in which you can make the experience of visiting and using your store an exceptional one for your prospects and customers. If you do, you will accrue many benefits, including increased sales and revenue, more repeat buyers, and it could even improve your rankings on Google as customers share their great experience with others online and link back to your store.

The number one priority must be to ensure that the products that you sell from your eCommerce store are top quality. There is little point in getting everything else 100% right if what you are selling is sub-standard. Beyond that objective, here are 7 other ways you can make the customer experience in your eCommerce store better than what your competition offers their visitors.

Make Navigation Throughout Your Store Easy

One of the quickest ways to annoy and lose a potential customer is if the navigation within your eCommerce is difficult and confusing. You want it to be as easy to browse your store as it would be in a store in a shopping mall. Categorise and group like products, provide links in each description to specific pages, and always provide a way for visitors to return to the main store page.

Use Only Top Quality Images

In a real store, customers can touch, feel, and see products up close, so an online store is at somewhat of a disadvantage. You can overcome that by ensuring that every product image you publish is of the highest quality. You should try avoiding generic or stock images that other store owners are using. Make your store and your product descriptions unique by taking high-quality product photos of your own.

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3 Easy WordPress Templates You Can Use Right Away

3 Easy WordPress Templates You Can Use Right Away

WordPress has quickly become the preferred Content Management System of bloggers and website owners worldwide. Its stability, multi-functionality, and ease of use make it the perfect choice for anyone setting up a new website.

WordPress users choose how to display their content by picking a “template.” A template (or “theme”) is simply a pre-designed web page that can be configured to the user’s desire.

There are a wide variety of templates on the market ranging from simple ones to those having advanced functions. If you are new to WordPress it is best to start out with a basic template that will help you learn the ropes. In my opinion, the following 3 templates are the best for getting started right away.

1. Zweig

Zweig is a simple blogging template that draws the viewer’s eye to the written content. It is a single-column template that lists one blog post after another in the center of the page. It reminds me of the classic Blogspot type of styling although it is coded with the latest standards of HTML 5 and CSS 3.

Readers can navigate the website through the spacious menu at the upper right hand of the header. They can also just scroll down on the homepage to view all the different blog posts.

You only have to do a couple of things to get this blog template started. First you’ll have to do a one-click install from the WordPress theme repository. Next, as with all WordPress templates you have to set up your menu.

This is as simple as choosing what pages will be displayed and putting them in order. The next step is just to start writing. It is incredibly easy to write blog post after blog post to begin adding content to your site.

You can also create additional “static” pages (for content that will remain the same) and choose from hundreds of widgets to add even more functionality.

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