Posts in category: News

Google is always working to better connect people to helpful information, hence why they are constantly updating their algorithm.

On 25th August 2022, they released what they are calling the “helpful content update” that’s part of a broader effort to ensure people see more original and helpful content. The rollout could take up to two weeks to complete.

In their statement, Google said that they want to reward content that offers visitors a satisfying experience, stipulating that content that doesn’t meet visitors’ expectations won’t perform as well.

Continue reading to find out more about the update and things creators should consider.

How it works?

Google’s helpful content update is a sitewide signal that identifies low-value content. It targets websites with high amounts of unsatisfying or unhelpful content or content written for search engines first.

With the number of blog posts increasing every day, Google wants to do something to counter the volume of content on the web. They advised content creators to audit the existing content and remove any unhelpful content to help the good pieces rank better.

How to create content that will be successful with Google’s new update?

Well, the only solution is to follow Google’s long-standing advice to create content for people, not for search engines.

Focus on creating human-centred content and only use SEO practices to bring searchers additional value. If you are not sure about whether your content is human-centred, answer the following questions:

• Do you have an existing or intended audience that would find the content useful if they came directly to you?
• Does your content clearly demonstrate a depth of knowledge and first-hand expertise?
• Does your site have a primary focus?
• After reading your content, will someone leave feeling like they’ve learned enough about a topic to help them achieve a goal?
• Will someone reading your content leave feeling they had a satisfying experience?

Does SEO still matter?

Yes, if you do it right.

Although Google is earnest about having a people-first content approach, that does not invalidate following SEO best practices. You can still optimise your content for SEO to boost your ranking but avoid taking search engine-first approaches like:

• Writing topics outside of your niche simply because they are trending
• Creating high volumes of content on different topics in hopes that some of it will perform well in search results
• Summarising what others have to say without adding more value
• Writing content that leaves readers feeling like they need to search again to get more information from other sources
• Writing a particular word count because you read that Google has a preferred word count
• Using extensive automation, specifically, AI content writing and copywriting tools to produce content on many topics
• Entering a niche topic area without any real expertise with the sole purpose of getting search traffic
• Promising to answer a question that has no answer. For example, suggesting there’s a release date for a product but it hasn’t been confirmed.

What can you do to prepare for Google’s new update?

Google’s helpful content update will cause radical changes in search results in the next few weeks. So, how can you prepare for the changes about to come? Here are a few dos and don’ts.

Dos

1. Audit your content

Taking unhelpful content off your website and leaving what is relevant is a good place to start. If you have over-optimised content or scaled content on your site, get rid of it now. Doing this before the update rolls out will give your good content a chance to be indexed and ranked by Google.

2. Look at changes on the keyword and URL level

Sometimes your website loses rank because of irrelevant keywords. Keywords reveal a searcher’s true intent, so make sure that you’re using words and phrases that align with your target audience’s needs. Additionally, check your URL to ensure that visitors are able to make out what the destination page is about. Using relevant keywords in your URL can help improve your ranking, but don’t create an unuseful URL just to include a keyword.

3. Look for shifts in user intent

Core algorithm updates can lead to a different understanding of what users want to achieve with a search, so if you lose ranks, search for patterns across keywords that changed in rank.

Don’ts

1. Don’t draw conclusions when updates are still rolling out

Google’s helpful content update is still rolling. Shuffling things during the rollout will only cause more confusion, so allow the dust to settle before you make any drastic changes.

2. Don’t go with your first assumption

Out of the need for preservation, you will be tempted to start making changes as soon as possible, but don’t. before you make any conclusion, gather as much data as possible, compare your conclusions with other content creators and look for commonalities.

3. Don’t panic when your site dips

This might sound counteractive when your site is losing rank, but drastic overcorrecting can do more harm than good in the long term. If you haven’t been aggressive with SEO tactics, take your time, plan, and make small changes as you go.

If you are well acquainted with digital marketing, it will help to have a digital marketing expert to walk you through the changes about to happen.

Contact us today, to speak to one of our digital marketing experts.

© FOME

After a week of Government-imposed social distancing measures, it feels like Great Britain is now closed. The streets are all but empty. Only essential retail businesses continue to trade whilst their neighbours’ shopfronts are dark. The world is turning, but it turns behind closed doors.

We have battened down our hatches, stocked our cupboards and hunkered down while we try to process what has happened and what the effect will be on our businesses.

But it won’t always be like that. One day, in the not too distant future, this extraordinary period in our history will end and businesses will return, slowly and gingerly, to some new version of normal in a very changed economy.

The question is: Will yours be one of them?

We know it really might not feel like it right now, but this really could be a perfect opportunity for you and your business – a period where you have the time and chance to really focus on ensuring you’re ready to be successful when this ends.

At times of crisis, the instinct for some business owners is to do nothing slowly. They go into ‘wait and see’ mode. Decision making is paralysed. Anything that, in ‘normal’ times, would be considered a normal cost of doing business is choked off.

But while that may save in the short term, it breeds inertia and creates space in the market for competitors who have used the time away from their day-to-day business as usual activities to plan how they will bounce back and be more successful than they were when the crisis struck.

At FOME, we’re still here. We’re planning for a successful future in which we will thrive and grow, and our absolute priority is to make sure that we’re there to help our clients be ready to get off to the quickest possible start when the current restrictions are lifted.

We’ve spoken to many of our contacts and peers and we know that smart businesses are using this time to engage with their clients and customers, to build their profile and create soft leads so that when they get back to work they have a pipeline that’s fully formed.

Because it’s not going to be enough to try to do it when the Government announces GB PLC is open for business again. It will be too late. And your existing and potential customers and clients are online right now, with lots of time to engage with you.

None of those smart businesses have simply assumed they’ll automatically get back the clients they’ve lost to the Covid-19 crisis. All of them are maintaining those connections and – crucially – building new ones.

The ugly reality is that if you’re not doing that, too, you may not have a business to come back to.

Now is the time to invest strategically in your digital marketing, to create a presence online. When this situation does finally end, people will be ready to spend, and by working together – now – we can try to ensure that they choose to spend with you rather than your competitor.

As you might expect from a modern digital agency, we’re still open for business because our entire team is able to work from home as effectively and efficiently as we can from our offices.

We’re here to help you to build a strong online presence across social media and through clever investment in SEO to take advantage of the opportunities your competitors are giving you by not doing the same thing.

If services can be converted into a digital offer, we can help you to set up and then market and promote those services and courses, giving you a revenue stream while the enforced closure of your physical premises is in place.

And by looking at the long game and prioritising your SEO, it’s the ideal time to steal a march on your competitors by using this time to put in the hard yards that go into improving your Google ranking.

Are you ready to invest in your success?

Because we are – and we’re ready to prove it during this crisis by providing website maintenance, implementing changes and adding new developments at no charge to allow you to focus on putting your business back in front of your customers while they have the time to engage with you.

Come and talk to us. We’re in this with you.

New technology is emerging everywhere around us. We live in a time when phrases like Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality and Artificial intelligence have already made their way out of science fiction media and into our day-to-day dictionaries. Most of us spend considerable amounts of time on our phones, which are getting smarter by the minute. We’ve also got smart home appliances – TVs, microwaves, refrigerators, precision cookers and coffee machines connected to the Internet of Things and there to make our lives easier.

As most tech enthusiasts would put it – we live in the digital age now. And we, at FOME wholeheartedly agree with that. We’re surrounded by technology, have got very used to it, and living without the conveniences of Google, YouTube and Facebook seem impossible.

This is called an Emerging Tech Life Cycle – the progression of technology from an exciting innovation to something that everyone uses.

A look at the emerging tech lifecycle

Innovation Peak

When a new technology is first introduced, interest spikes through the roof. This is the point at which research investors typically get involved in emerging tech projects and developers get to really dive into things.

Expectation Peak

As the mass public gets wind of the possibilities, various influencers will tend to hype up the technology, posing numerous “What if?” questions. This is when mass pre-orders, unboxing videos and trending social media tags tend to happen. Generally, the prices will be at their all-time-high during this period

Trough of Disillusionment

Even though this doesn’t happen with every piece of technology, things will generally quiet down once the initial hype wave passes. People will realise that, even though new and exciting, this particular technology might not affect their own lives as much as they originally thought.

Slope of Enlightenment

As more and more big companies pick up the product, it slowly becomes more and more accessible, up to the point where everyone can have it. There is barely any hype now, coming only from the most die-hard brand loyalists and fans of the product.

Plateau of Productivity

If the technology turns out worthwhile (like smartphones did, for example), it lives to become an integral part of our everyday lives.

And while investors and while business owners and the public debate the risks and benefits of these emerging technologies, designers are preparing for the new user interfaces that these technologies will require.

Designers that tackle digital products and online experiences, for example, have to consider the rise of VR, which is being used more and more in the web design industry.

This experience, created to celebrate 50 years of Swiss Music Charts, is a good example of this in practice. It’s a VR website that maintains a strong desktop UX, a relatively new concept and therefore a fresh challenge within the world of digital design.

The introduction of biometrics to our smartphones is another example of this. Anybody with an iPhone 6 or higher will be familiar with the below Touch ID icon, which is used to prompt users to use their fingerprint to access protected data. Such an icon would never have been necessary on classic smartphones, and is, therefore, an example of how technological innovations create challenges for designers.

The future will no doubt give rise to more disruptive technology that will once again change the way we think about digital design. In fact, we’re usually privy to these breakthroughs beforehand – if we look hard enough.

Looking Forward: Thought Control and Holograms

This section of the blog might seem like science-fiction to some readers, but the technologies discussed have been heavily researched and could realistically materialise in the next decade or so.

One exciting example could be the rise of Brain-Computer Interfaces, which will allow users to interact with computers and other devices using thought alone. Much like the rise of ‘gesture’ interactions that touchscreen technology brought with it, Brain-Computer Interfaces could give way to a whole new brain-wave of interactions to design for…

Pun definitely intended.

And software innovations aren’t the only new technologies that designers will have to look out for.

Volumetric displays – or holograms as they’re more commonly known – represent another exciting and potentially paradigm-shifting technology for designers. If sufficiently implemented, this technology could be much more than science fiction; it could end up replacing computing displays and making standard hardware like keyboards and mice obsolete.

Changing the way that users experience computers and mobiles would provide a brand new challenge for a lot of stakeholders, but none more so than designers.

In Conclusion

The last 20 or so years have seen a boom in digital innovation, creating new and exciting platforms for UX and UI designers to work with.

As new technologies continue to emerge, new interfaces and experiences have to be created to support them. At JBi, we know the importance of preparing for these advances, and our designers are ready to embrace the technology that we now see as science fiction.

Who knows, we might all be viewing this blog inside a contact lens by the time it’s published.

If you are looking for support on your digital project – whether it’s AR, VR, or just a good old website build – please don’t hesitate to get in touch at info@fome.agency

With 2019 just around the corner, it’s time to start planning your marketing strategy for the year ahead. As new technologies and trends changing the business landscape, 2019 looks set to be a year of real change for marketers.

But what should your business be looking out for in the new year to enhance your own marketing strategies? Here are just four marketing trends that your brand needs to get on board with for 2019.

VOICE SEARCH

We are increasingly seeing more and more search queries performed through voice assistants such as Siri and Alexa, and with good reason. It’s quick, convenient, and saves the searcher trawling through reams of text to find their solution.

Recognising this trend are dozens of big-name brands, who use voice search throughout their marketing strategies.

Take the fast food chain Burger King for example, whose “What is the Whopper burger?” ad hijacked viewers’ Google Assistants to provide a definition of the brand’s iconic burger. While it was eventually blocked by Google, the ad was a fine example of how brands can exploit voice search for their marketing.

Voice search has been massive in 2018, and with voice assistants becoming increasingly common in households around the world, they are ripe with opportunity for savvy brands to market to the masses.

Takeaway tip: optimise your website for voice search. Increase your page speed and create snippet-friendly FAQ sections to answer the most commonly-asked questions from your customers. A little work now prepares you for a trend that shows no sign of slowing in 2019.

EPHEMERAL CONTENT

First introduced by Vine back in 2012, ephemeral content has gone from strength to strength in recent years.

Snapchat made the concept of short, temporary videos its own, but Instagram perfected it. And with YouTube’s recent addition of seven-day stories for creators, ephemeral content is only gaining traction.

Ephemeral content forces brands to get creative with their marketing. The successful ephemeral story is one that speaks volumes in mere seconds, breaking down the essence of their brand and communicating it creatively.

It’s hard to nail, but once you get it right, it makes for a story that hits a chord with your customers and drives sales and engagement.

Takeaway tip: if you haven’t introduced stories into your marketing strategy yet, 2019 is the year to do so. And if you have, it’s the year to take it further. Create stories that play on customer FOMO and build a sense of urgency to compel them to swipe up or click through to your business.

LIVE VIDEO

Raw, candid, and unscripted, live video is the marketing trend that only the bravest of brands dare to embrace. But embrace it they must, because its popularity is only set to soar in 2019.

Like ephemeral content, a range of social platforms have introduced live streaming options for their users. The most recent of these is Instagram’s IGTV, through which users can upload videos up to an hour long.

Live video’s popularity lies in its intimate, off-the-cuff nature. Rather than a scripted, often predictable narrative, viewers take the journey with the brand. It’s exciting and dynamic, and as brands become ever more creative with its application, it will surely continue well into 2019.

Takeaway tip: Events, product launches, and behind-the-scenes peeks all make for perfect live content that customers love. And don’t be put off by its unrehearsed nature. Create a rough script before hand as a fallback, but don’t feel like you have to stick to it.

MICRO-INFLUENCERS

Influencer marketing is less a trend and more a defining marketing strategy in itself, experiencing its own internal trends and evolutions. Partnering with popular social stars to promote a brand, product, or service is a powerful marketing tactic at a brand’s disposal.

But where businesses previously sought the likes of Kim Kardashian and Zoella for their marketing collaborations, savvy brands today have visions of smaller targets: micro-influencers.

These are social stars with far smaller followings than their macro counterparts, commanding a following around 10-100K strong. Despite this apparently small following, micro-influencers deliver something highly valuable for brands: engagement.

With such a close, intimate following, micro-influencers are able to connect on a more personal level with their fans. As a result, their followers pay more attention to their content, which includes their branded posts.

And part of micro-influencers’ allure lies in their accessibility: every business, large or small, can take advantage of these niche social stars. They’re affordable but effective, and brands for virtually every industry have a number of influencers in their niche to choose from.

And as the world of business also becomes more accessible, the micro-influencer trend will only become more important in 2019. The rise of easy ecommerce store builders makes it easy for people to start a business. And with an increasing number of online businesses for sale, it’s even possible to simply buy your way into entrepreneurship.

Startups and SMEs will benefit hugely from micro-influencers in 2019. They’re an inexpensive but fruitful marketing solution that form the bedrock of a growing online (and offline) business.

Takeaway tip: identify micro-influencers within your business niche using a content research tool. Reach out to them to start a collaboration that drives engagement for your brand. Aim for more than just products: real engagement with a brand lasts forever, so create a relationship with your business rather than just your products.

BRANDS AS EXPERTS

In an age of fake news and alternative facts, consumers increasingly demand authority and truth in their content. And with the rise of alternative news sources such as Breitbart or the Canary, customers seek sources who can deliver genuine, fact-based thought.

And what better authority than a brand that owns its niche? From essential industries such as healthcare to leisure and entertainment brands, businesses can position themselves as authorities within their field.

Many brands’ success is down to this position of expertise. By showing their customers that they know their industry and its deeper machinations, their product or service is naturally informed by this.

More and more, we are seeing brands look to scientific research and studies to educate their customers.

Take the beauty brand L’Oréal for instance. Alongside its products, how-to guides for skincare and detailed ingredients lists help promote the brand as a beauty publisher. These intelligent and comprehensive resources lift L’Oréal out of the commercial and position it as an expert — a powerful thing in 2019.

Takeaway tip: by virtue of owning a business in an industry niche, you are (or have the capacity to be) an authority. Create detailed resources that educate your customers about your industry. In doing so, you become more than simply a business — you become an authority.

2018 has been a whirlwind year for brands and marketers everywhere. We’re in a very different place to where we were a year ago, and 2019 looks set to promise just as much, if not more, change. Pay close attention to developments in the fields above, and keep your business ahead of the game in 2019.

In May this year, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) came into force, changing the way that businesses of all sizes handle the personal information they have on clients and consumers.

Companies have had to alter their privacy policies, update their mailing lists and let customers know exactly how their data will be stored and used in order to ensure their compliance with GDPR. The consequences for failing to do this can be huge, with potential penalties of up to millions of pounds.

This means that businesses need to be more careful than ever in obtaining and using personal data, but how do consumers themselves feel about this?

Are consumers happy to share their data post-GDPR?

According to new research carried out by DMA UK and Acxiom, more than half (51 per cent) of consumers are happy to share their data with companies, as long as they can see a clear benefit to doing so.

This finding featured in a report entitled ‘Global data privacy: What the consumer really thinks’, which also found that almost three-quarters (74 per cent) of people do have some degree of worry regarding their online privacy where their sensitive data is concerned.

What’s more, 78 per cent of those questioned said they believed businesses benefited from data sharing more than consumers did, which they felt was unfair.

The research involved consumers from across the world, finding that, across the board, 83 per cent of people would still like to have more control over their personal information. Although this was one of the principal aims of GDPR, it suggests that there is still a long way to go before consumers are completely happy with their data privacy.

Chris Combemale, chief executive of DMA, commented: “We are in a new era of data privacy. Questions have been raised about whether major data breaches and increased talk about the value of our personal data is impacting consumer anxiety over how their information is used.

“In fact, our research shows that even though consumers are more aware than ever and have concerns about their online data privacy, the majority will continue to share their personal information if they trust the organisation and gain something in return.”

How can companies ease consumers’ concerns?

The efforts that organisations put into getting their affairs in order in the run-up to GDPR coming into force, such as making their privacy policies clearer, should have gone some way towards easing customers’ data security concerns.

However, people spent the week before GDPR officially came in being bombarded with emails from brands and websites, which many simply ignored due to sheer volume. This means that many are still a little unsure how exactly their data is used and by whom.

With this in mind, it wouldn’t hurt for companies to get back in touch with their mailing lists (making sure anyone who did request to be deleted from it pre-GDPR has been removed, of course) to remind them where they can access your privacy policy, and go over how their data will be stored and used once more.

This will help to show that you foster a culture of transparency and value your customers’ concerns, and that you take their data privacy 100 per cent seriously.

Source: AM Online, ADMA

In today’s media-rich online landscape, it’s becoming harder and harder for businesses to really stand out with their digital marketing initiatives – a particularly pressing issue for small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), which are often reliant on online communications to raise awareness of their brand and services.

As such, these companies are likely to welcome the news that the professional network LinkedIn is once again expanding its video advertising capabilities to allow brands to include video as part of their sponsored content and company pages. This follows the successful introduction of video content for member pages last August, and will add another useful tool to SMEs’ comms arsenal.

How will the new video ads work?

The addition of native video ads for LinkedIn sponsored content will allow companies to incorporate video content directly as part of their news feed as a standalone post, making it easier than ever to engage with business decision-makers. This works hand-in-hand with LinkedIn’s existing B2B targeting capabilities, allowing brands to aim their visual content at a tailored audience using metrics such as job titles, seniority, company name, industry or skills.

It will also be possible to measure the performance of a campaign by analysing the insights and detailed breakdowns provided about the types of professionals watching, engaging with, and converting on these video ads, with LinkedIn’s Conversion Tracking tool integrated into the new platform to make it easy to measure the number of leads, sign-ups, website visits, and other actions generated by the content.

Meanwhile, the new video options enabled for company pages will provide SMEs with a more visually engaging and dynamic way of showcasing their corporate culture, products, news and events, helping them to attract talent and drive engagement and conversation. Both of these features will be available to all businesses in the coming weeks, with Oracle Moat software tools to be made available to facilitate third-party video measurement and viewability later this year.

What benefits might be achieved?

These new services have been launched by LinkedIn in response to growing demand. A recent survey carried out by the social network revealed that 46 per cent of B2B advertisers saw finding a quality environment for video campaigns as a major challenge, and the new offering has been designed to help address this.

Since launching a private beta test in October last year, more than 700 advertisers – including GE, Philips and Audi Canada – have tested video for sponsored content to highlight their products and services, as well as their company mission, customer success stories and thought leadership content. It has been shown that this has had a significant impact on brand engagement, with LinkedIn members spending almost three times longer watching video ads compared to time spent with static content.

Renske Siersema, social media manager at KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, explained how the addition of these video services is creating tangible benefits for her organisation, saying: “Video stands out because it doesn’t tell, but it shows. On a platform where there’s more business content, a video stands out more, especially on LinkedIn.”

Source: LinkedIn Business

Happy New Year! 2018 has arrived and we’re sure you’ve got lots of exciting plans for your business over the next 12 months.

As a small business owner, your website is invaluable in letting clients and potential customers know who you are and what you’ve achieved. Therefore, it’s important to keep it as up to date as possible to demonstrate how seriously you take your business and that you’re prepared to compete with major players in your field.

But what aspects of online marketing should you be focusing on in 2018?

Top US-based marketing consultant Cameron Conaway has revealed what he believes will be the biggest digital marketing trends of the year in a recent piece for the Huffington Post. Here, we look at a few of the most important for you to focus on:

Voice search

Voice-enabled search looks set to be huge this year, particularly after voice-controlled home assistants Google Home and Amazon Echo were among the most popular tech gifts this Christmas.

As a result, it’s vital that you take steps to optimise your website with appropriate keywords to boost the chances of it being picked as a result in voice searches. These artificial intelligence-powered devices might be clever, but they can only work with what you give them, so make sure you’re organising your website with voice search in mind.

Journalism marketing

Mr Conaway also highlighted the growing trend for journalists to make on marketing roles, applying their writing and reporting skills to the products or services companies are trying to sell, in a similar way to the growing content marketing trend.

Consumers increasingly want to read about the products they are thinking of purchasing, searching for reviews from other buyers, expert opinions and comment pieces. With this in mind, you should assess your content marketing strategy and look at applying some journalistic skills to your website to make you sound as authoritative and knowledgeable about the area you work in as possible.

Move your website to HTTPS

If your website isn’t on HTTPS, it’s unlikely that it will appear highly in search results this year, Mr Conaway warned. As a result, you could find yourself losing valuable traffic and even new business opportunities.

Websites that aren’t on HTTPS are not deemed to be as secure, but it can be a big task to move over a site that has a lot of content and a complicated structure.

If this is a challenge that you find yourself faced with, consider starting from scratch with a new simpler website and rebrand, employing all of the latest SEO best practice. It might be a lot of work now, but it should pay off in the long term.

Data visualisation

Big data has been big news for several years now, but are you managing to gain informative and useful insights from the data you collect? If not, you might want to explore new ways to visualise your data – another of Mr Conaway’s tipped hot trends for online marketing in 2018.

Being able to see your data more clearly could help you to gain clearer insights from it, which could help to inform your future marketing and wider business decisions.

© Fast Online Marketing Experts