Q. What have stopping smoking, losing weight, getting fit, improving your sex-life…… and increasing business leads got in common? A. They're the sorts of things more searched for in Google in January than in most other months of the year. This time of year not only provides a trigger for bettering our bodies and our lives, but our businesses, too. Some months back, I talked about ‘intent’ – meaning the reasons and motivations behind why someone searches for such-and-such a subject, and some of the things that marketers and business-owners can do to their websites to help their business gets found when googlers are googling. This time round, we’re talking about intention...…
Digital marketing publisher and learning resource, Smart Insights suggest that as people have become more used to search engines and how they work, they are now searching for more specific queries. They go on to propose that by targeting specific long tail search queries, smaller websites have a better chance at ranking in search engine results pages (SERPs) for really specific and niche queries. This article looks at some keyword tools and how they can be used to uncover long tail keywords……
If your business has a website you’ll not need me to tell you how difficult it can be to get visitors onto it. Many businesses rely heavily on getting found in Google search for the things they would like to be found for. Some (unfortunately, not all – not even most) have gone to the trouble (and/or expense) of writing and optimising their web content in the hope that search engines will pick them up and put them onto the mobile-phone/laptop/tablet/desktop screens of the people doing the ‘googling’. Others spend money – sometimes, lots of money – to get their business onto those screens. Of course, there are many other ways to get visitors (e.g. links from other sites and sources), but this article isn’t about getting visitors… it’s about keeping them! Easier said than done...…
The ‘Hide and Seek World Championship’ is a real thing, you know. Named after the Italian for ‘hide-and-seek’ – nascondino – the event is held annually in the ghost town of Consonno in Italy (a story in itself). The current champion, BTW, is a team from Marseille. Little explanation of the rules is needed here – hiders and a seeker (‘it’) Academic articles and opinion pieces talk about the value of games like hide-and-seek in child psychological and cognitive development. About how on one hand, the hider learns how to be autonomous, okay ‘on their own’ as it were… but with the reassurance of being ‘discovered by someone who’s looking, someone who really wants to find us.’ To quote pediatrician and psychoanalyst, D. W. Winnicott, “It is a joy to be hidden but disaster not to be found.” In this short article we look at the latter in the context of what it means to be in business in the second decade of the 21st century...…
We all like something for nothing. But haven’t we all heard the adage – attributed to Napoleon Hill – that there is no such thing? The problem with ‘free’ is, well, that it’s rarely truly free. Why? Because there is no value in free. This is known as the Common Law of Business Balance, often articulated in this quote attributed to 19th-century writer, art critic and social thinker, John Ruskin: It’s unwise to pay too much, but it’s worse to pay too little. When you pay too much, you lose a little money — that is all. When you pay too little, you sometimes lose everything, because the thing you bought was incapable of doing the thing it was bought to do. The common law of business balance prohibits paying a little and getting a lot – it can’t be done. If ever we need a neat demonstration of this in the world of marketing, we only need to look to Facebook’s organic reach stats...…
Because of what I do, I read so much about what’s happening – and what’s about to happen – in the world of digital marketing. Day and daily, a steady flow of marketing, advertising, digital marketing and social media industry information and trends floods into my in-box: of course, much of it content marketing itself. I love words and I read as many of them as I possibly can, but there are only so many hours in the day… I need to know these things, but I need to be able to understand, digest and remember what’s being said quickly and easily… because there’ll be more stuff coming down the line tomorrow! I also need to be able to communicate any important insights and findings to some very busy people who also need to know: my clients and my social media community who have connected with me because of how I can sometimes make life a little easier for them.…
Digital marketing training, support and capability building for the private sector is generally widely accessible, but - unfortunately - is not quite so prevalent for the third sector. Perhaps, the well documented gap in digital skills within the community and voluntary organisations is directly proportionate to the gap in digital skills training available to the sector...…
Just over 10 years ago I was very fortunate to dine in one of Florence’s best and most popular restaurants. It was a wonderfully unusual experience — it was late evening and we ate in an unlit courtyard, which made it difficult to see what we were actually eating. I guess, not surprisingly, that that very sensation probably heightened the senses of taste and smell. Anyway, the food was both simple and simply delicious. To this day — over a decade later — I can still easily evoke the taste. I had a seafood dish, the star(s) of which were the fattest, juiciest langoustines, or Dublin Bay Prawns. Why is this important...?…
You probably know the little story about the cobbler who was so busy making and repairing shoes for his customers that he didn’t have time to make sure that his own children had decent shoes on their feet. We’ve all come across someone with Cobbler’s Children Syndrome… … the hairdresser with an awful haircut. …the builder whose house looks like it might fall down. …the marketing consultant with a rubbish website… Okay, it’s time for me to admit it: I’ve been something of a cobbler for the better part of four years now.…
According to Google’s Keyword Planner, there are 3,802,910 searches in Google every month across the world for terms relating to “golf courses Northern Ireland” There are 659,890 for “hotels Northern Ireland” related terms. And some 69,030 searches for terms relating to “Portrush accommodation”. Looks like we’re kind of a big deal, then. A wonderful opportunity at the best of times, but with Royal Portrush playing host to The 148th Open this July, surely the opportunity is greater this year above all years… both in the short-term and as a legacy. So, how can accommodation and hospitality businesses, and visitor attractions make the most of this golden opportunity? It all begins with getting found! This short article will help you achieve just that...…
Over the last 12 months I’ve been in front of the better part of 250 businesses, whether that’s been through marketing consultancy, one-to-one mentoring, or group training. During the course of my work, among the questions I’m most frequently asked by business owners and managers is “how can we get to the top of page one of Google?” or “how can we rank higher than our competitors in Google?” I love this sort of hunger. However – and here’s the paradox – among the countries in the UK, we’re the least likely to google terms like ‘SEO’. Of course, there will be a number of reasons for this, including a lack of understanding of what ‘SEO’ actually means and its role in “getting to the top of page one of Google” or out-ranking the competition. That’s okay. It’s my job to help businesses understand these things...…
