What do you need to look out for in this digital world?
There are several digital elements that your H&L business can leverage, from Search engine optimisation (SEO), website development, user experience analysis, social media, Pay per click (PPC) campaigns and many more. But what are the quick wins and where should you reach out for additional support?
Digital marketing has come a long way in recent years, and was bought to the forefront due to the pandemic and the need for many businesses to move online. Digital marketing has therefore become a crucial element of the marketing mix for any business. Digital marketing brings with it a number of challenges and opportunities that can take your brand and marketing efforts in new and exciting directions.
What is the key to a good social strategy that works?
Social media is an incredibly powerful tool that can be leveraged and used in a number of different ways, from identifying your audience, interacting and engaging with your target market, reflecting your brand identity, as well as advertising your product and service lines.
As there are so many opportunities it is often a good idea to create a social media policy, to formalise the approach and formulate some consistency for your business.
A policy will assist you and your business in comprehending and articulating:
- How your company uses social media, considering how it advances the businesses goals and purpose
- Your expectations for how trustees, employees, and volunteers should behave on social media
- How you will engage with the public on social media
- Who should be consulted if something goes wrong.
Setting a more formal approach when using social media can be beneficial to respond to negative comments and feedback. Moreover, it can also bring other benefits such as:
- Creating a more consistent brand identity
- Encouraging brand ambassadors among employees by giving them the tools and guidance needed
- Quicker response to social media crisis – as more people are aware what problematic content looks like
- Can mitigate legal and security issues
How is social evolving?
As the social media landscape changes, you need to change with it. There is now more emphasis on video content across all areas from social all the way to your website content, as the way people now consume content has changed. People would much rather watch a two-minute short video than read a two page document. That being said long form content on social media platforms is also on the rise, this is especially true as individuals want to consume your content without leaving the social platform. This therefore shows there is no right or wrong and you should look at the data to see which has the best impact and resonates with your audience.
The platforms you are using to communicate with your audience may need to evolve with the times as well. HR, Careers, CSR and DEI are a key part of employer branding, this content has always been prevalent on LinkedIn, however a large number HR and career teams are now also using Instagram as a new medium to engage with potential candidates. Twitter is a declining network for most companies but not all? Have you considered what would happen if your key social channel dried up? Have you got contingencies? Do you need to create a presence on a new channel now before your main social avenue disappears or a new channel takes the top spot? Creating an engaged social audience takes time, should you start now? Or will you be spreading yourself to thin?
Quick tips to improve your social media:
- Keep it fresh, new and different to competitors – variety is the spice of like
- Unique graphics, wording, content type and visuals
- Do not deviate or dilute your brand identity
- Have a large social template bank and add to these over time or redevelop them every year (as a minimum)
- Create a social media calendar, to schedule ideas for content you wish to send out.
Website
In the current age for many companies their website is their new shop front. Therefore, if thousands of people are going to see your website they need to know where to find and buy your products and services. But also find your website in the first place?
Your site structure and navigation is crucial to the viewers experience and converting traffic on your website. I would employ you to step into the mind of a consumer coming across your website for the first time, as it may make sense to you but are potential customers getting lost within your website due to a confusing site structure? An easy way to review this is to carry out some user experience (UX) testing and look at the buyers journey through your site, thinking about how you funnel people through from the broad queries all the way down to a successful conversion.
Do you know what domain authority your website holds? Why is this important?
Domain authority is an integral part of all digital activities on your website, as the higher your domain authority the more trusted your content and website will be viewed by search engines. Resulting in higher website rankings and therefore meaning you will gain more traffic to your website and thus more opportunity to get consumers into your marketing funnels.
You can improve your domain authority (DA) in several ways, but this is not a short and simple process. You need a long-term strategy to improve your websites rating and a lot of patience, this will not change overnight. But the sooner you start the sooner you will see positive change.
What can you do to improve your DA?
You should consider:
- The quality of your content is a massive factor, this included content length and structure.
- Gaining quality back links to your website
- Consistent content creation
- Updating and maintaining content and core web vitals
- Navigation and internal web linking
Search engine optimisation (SEO)
SEO is one of the more technical elements of digital marketing, but what are the basics of SEO and what do you need to know to get started?
SEO is the practice of getting your website to rank higher on search engine results page (SERP) to increase the traffic directed to your website. Ensuring you rank on the first page of google for the search terms that mean the most to your target audience.
The secret to SEO? Work with the super power that is Google and change with their algorithms, if you do not change with google you will get left behind and all of your SEO activities will be less effective in the long run.
Find out what Googles algorithm is currently looking for in your content, as this can greatly change your contents ranking within Google (most recent googles algorithm changes) Planning your SEO strategy and the keywords you wish to rank for needs to be done with your consumers and their key queries in mind. However increasing your search engine rankings is greatly impacted by your Domain authority so this is a good place to begin. However if you rank for the long tail keywords alongside the more general terms and questions you receive, you will increase your ranking more efficiently over time, which can be incredibly lucrative for business and also improve your Domain authority at the same time.
These long tail keywords can also be less competitive when ranking and could be a good in road that your competitors are not targeting (be aware the long tail keywords do have less monthly traffic but you are likely to rank higher sooner)
Although you have to be aware that SEO is not a quick win and you will need to put a lot of time and effort into your SEO strategy, but also your content strategy to make sure these align and work together. It will likely be well over 12 months before you see any real results and you will need to consistently nurture your SEO strategy in line with the algorithm changes of Google but also the key topics and enquiries that arise from your target market to keep this growing in the right direction.
Could SEO help increase ROI or save on Ad spend?
If you are running Pay per click (PPC) campaigns to appear at the top of the SERP, could you get a bigger ROI or save on your ad spend by building your organic ranking with SEO?
If your content or website appears first in the SERP results due to your SEO activities, you will not need to pay for every click you gain from this content, which could save you considerable amounts of money in advertising. The added benefit of organically ranking your website and content is that it can increase your ROI of PPC campaigns as PPC will often perform better and yield a higher return if you’re actively ranking in the search results below your paid ad. As this confirms you are a specialist for that search term and therefore a more trusted resource rather than just appearing as an ad which anyone can pay to appear for.
The importance of tracking your SEO performance, to show the improvement, leads and rankings and what resources could you use (there are many more put we find these very powerful)?
- Google search console
- Google analytics
- Google Ads
- Answer the public
The important of tracking your position over time is especially important as this is such a long process it is sometimes hard to remember where you positioned when you started the process. It is also very rewarding to see that your SEO efforts have directly increased your organic traffic, conversion rates, SERP ranking and DA. Alternatively if these are not increasing over time then you need to revaluate your SEO strategy or consult a professional to assist you with your digital activities.
For more information on digital best practice for your Hospitality and Leisure business. Please get in contact with Chris Maloney, head of our H&L team and strategic business advisory speciality via the below form: