How to Advertise your Brand on a Budget

Small businesses have a need for powerful advertising as much as any other business.

Exhibition stands have the power to enhance your image and make yourself visible to your target audience. Aside from introducing your products and services in an eye-catching and memorable way, smart exhibition stands can also help to generate sales leads.

Using exhibition stands

Whether it’s trade shows, shop stands or pop-up displays, Display advertising (phyiscally) is often a very effective route. Assuming you’ve hand-picked the right marketing events and conventions to engage your target audience that is. I also recommend you check out expressexhibitiondisplays.co.uk’s cheap exhibitions stands, they’re the price leader when it comes to quality display gear, definitely an excellent way to secure powerful advertising for your brand on a budget.

Trade shows

Trade shows offer a perfect opportunity to advertise your brand using attractive exhibition stands that don’t have to blow your budget. You can easily create a display that

Trade shows can be a very powerful marketing medium due to the fact that they bring thousands of potential customers directly to you. Consider what trade shows may be worth attending in your industry, and request media kits for each show so you can decide if it’s right for your brand.

Above all else, trade shows are a fantastic way to keep up with competitors and get your name out in circulation. It doesn’t have to cost the earth to get a fantastic display. Simply opt for a tablecloth and accessories that represent your brand’s image or match your brand’s colours, and this will help your exhibition stand to pop.

Pop-up displays

Another great way to make use of exhibition stands is pop-up displays. Whether on the street or in a shopping mall, brightly coloured and exciting displays attract immediate attention without the need for a big budget.

Consider implementing an interactive element in your display, such as a video playing on a loop, or a short PowerPoint presentation, which is something you can also promote on your social media channels. Less is more in this regard, so make sure that you use short, sharp bursts of text and colour. You don’t want to overload your audience with information, you just want your brand’s image to shine through and be memorable.

It’s a good idea to include pictures, bright colours and a snappy slogan – this makes your display easy to digest as potential customers are passing by.

Promoting your brand

An exhibition stand is fantastic when it comes to grabbing attention, but what to do once you have the attention you want? It’s important to be able to follow up on this by giving your potential customers something that will ensure they keep you in mind.

Promotional material such as flyers, business cards and even pens don’t cost much to produce and give you something to hand out to people who stop by your stand. Consider fun giveaway items too, such as magnets, postcards or even sweets. Anything that ensures your brand is remembered is positive.

Overall, you don’t need to spend a fortune to advertise your brand and ensure it stands out. The right exhibition display can be a powerful tool to help launch your brand and make it stick in the mind of the consumer.

The post How to Advertise your Brand on a Budget appeared first on Small Business Can.

PR Metrics You Need to Share with your Team

The PR metrics that you should consider sharing with your team are based on the objectives of your business. PR is a tool for communication designed to help you meet your business objectives. Within PR, spending a significant amount of time on tracking metrics is necessary in order to communicate the value of this function.

Determining Metrics

Revenue is among the top metrics that require close monitoring along with others that can help you reach your full potential. When you measure PR efforts in an accurate and efficient manner, you are in a better position to link them directly to how your customers behave.
Technological advancements have made it easier for PR professionals to capture PR metrics that add value.
When considering which PR metrics to share, it is important to understand why PR is taking place. PR is an investment typically made to address the need to make your audience do something or react in a certain way.
Desired actions from customers range from making purchases to filling out forms. You may also want them to distribute your content or go to your site for information. Such activities will help you determine which PR metrics will be most valuable for you and your team. The metrics should have poor definition in order for you to be able to gauge the success of your business.

Revenue

Revenue is a value and data driven metric that needs to be visible. It is important for you to determine how you can stimulate growth that will lead to an increase in revenue. For businesses that engage in ecommerce, various campaigns can be useful to drive sales.
If you operate an online business, aspects such as content, social media and emails are essential. These efforts need measuring to find out the number of leads and conversions generated.
Online resources are available to help you know where your traffic is coming from as well as the likelihood of conversions. Invest in the resources that you need to monitor your public relations efforts and note how much revenue the business earns.

Sales Conversions and Leads

Some PR strategies focus on converting site visits into sales opportunities. PR campaigns have the potential to create an increase in sales conversions and leads. PR aim at showcasing brands positively and conveying the company’s area of expertise. Measuring leads is a good metric for PR efforts.

Mentions

Mentions indicate how many times your brand has had a referral it within a specified period. While some PR professionals may be skeptical about the value of mentions, the reality is that the number of mentions helps you know how effective your communication has been among influencers.

The impact of your activities on how often your brand gets a mention or trends is a useful way to track your PR results. It helps you understand how successful your messages are in comparison to your competitors.

Audience

Audience is an important metric that shows you how many people link to your brand. People such as visitors to your site, followers on social media platforms and subscribers to your blog let you know if you are on the right track. Monitoring the growth of your audience enables you to know if you are using the right strategies.

ROI

Return on investment or ROI is a valuable metric when determining PR success. It can often be challenging to calculate but it is necessary for establishing how PR benefits translate into business profits. Analytics software is usually the best way to keep track of ROI related metrics and measure PR effectiveness. Some PR platforms have built in reporting or analytics sections where data for such ROI calculations can be extracted. Other standalone analytics platforms such as PanXpan have specific modules that allow for ROI and PR effectiveness to be tracked. ROI can be tracked through measures such as CPM (cost per thousand reached), cost per conversion or the cost to generate a dollar in revenue.

Impressions

Impressions on social media are readily quantifiable when measuring how successful a PR campaign is. Links to websites and social media pages make it possible for users to interact regularly. This type of interaction provides PR professionals with the chance to measure their efforts in a timely and precise manner.

Impressions give insight into the number of times users view a particular message. They are important because they can create awareness.

Remember to Share

After defining your metrics and investing in the tools you need to measure them, it is important to share them with your team. Make sure that the set metrics are manageable and will add value to your organization. Metrics are a useful component of the learning process within an organization.

Communicate with other members of the team about the progress made. Progress should undergo regular review while sharing different experiences and challenges along the way.

The post PR Metrics You Need to Share with your Team appeared first on Small Business Can.

Closing Date to Enter Business Achievers Awards

The closing date to enter the Business Achievers Awards is Friday 25th September 2015.

Just few more weeks to be in chance to win a €50,000 advertising bursary; business mentoring from Enterprise Ireland; a full service communications workshop by leading PR and marketing professionals, networking opportunities, a specially commissioned video, press coverage, a big Gala night out…

Here is a reminder of all the benefits your business could get for spending 30 minutes on the form. (enter the awards today)

Benefits and Prizes

The application process itself is an opportunity to reflect on what your business is all about and clearly articulate your Unique Selling Points. It’s an opportunity to work on your business rather than in it by stepping back to look at achievements, challenges, market trends and areas for improvement.

Provincial finalists gain

Exclusive rights to use the Ulster Bank Business Achievers Awards logo for promotion and marketing purposes.
On-going promotional opportunities as part of the Business Achievers’ Alumni that will greatly raise the profile of the company
Benchmarking of progress and achievements against competitors and other sectors in the local business environment.
Networking opportunities with fellow entrepreneurs, business leaders, enterprise support agencies as well as local and national government agencies
Tangible public acknowledgement for the effort of staff and recognition of their contribution in growing and developing the business.

Provincial Winners receive

Coverage by national media partners, The Belfast Telegraph and/ or The Irish Independent
A specially commissioned company video that can be used on the company’s website and as part of marketing information
A specially commissioned awards trophy

Overall winner receives

A €50,000 advertising bursary with the Irish Independent.
Exclusive internationally recognised business mentoring from Enterprise Ireland.
A full service communications workshop for you and key staff given by leading PR, Marketing, Sales and Communications specialists.
A specially commissioned Ulster Bank Business Achievers Award trophy made exclusively for Award winners to provide a lasting recognition.

Enter your business in the Business Achievers Awards today and get your business the attention it deserves!

The post Closing Date to Enter Business Achievers Awards appeared first on Small Business Can.

This post was originally published here - http://www.smallbusinesscan.com/closing-date-to-enter-business-achievers-awards/ on

Looking For Your Company’s Data Analyst? Here’s What You Need To Know

Data analysts, or more fancily called as data scientists nowadays, have become essential people to have in expanding businesses. Despite that, the employment rate growth for this occupation is rather slower compared to other office-related jobs. However, they are one of the few who enjoy handsome salaries. And unlike other office personnel, data analysts usually dictate the future of the companies they serve.

The job of a data analyst is to assess, organize, and gather data from different resources. They use the data to formulate useful and possibly important information. Mostly, data analysts are involved in product research and development, and market trends and conditions analyses.

A data analyst candidate must have a four-year university degree related to computer science, business administration, math, and statistics. They need to be knowledgeable of statistics, data management, computer science, and data analysis tools and software applications such as Microsoft Excel and Tableau on Hadoop.

In addition, the candidate must be familiar with the most common data format types such as XML, JSON, and RDF. To some extent, he or she must be familiar with using programming languages in order to create data analysis solutions of his or her own and improve the functionality of the data solutions that you use.

Translating data into layman’s terms

The candidate must be an expert when it comes to translating data and information in layman’s terms. He or she must know the easiest and fastest ways of distributing important information. He or she must be an expert when it comes to creating and interpreting graphs, data mashups, scorecards, and dashboards.

When it comes to skills, data analysts must be detailed-oriented; if possible, they must be a bit critical. Of course, mastery of intermediate mathematics is mandatory. In large-scale companies and systems, a data analyst must be also capable of handling databases, employing data management concepts, and troubleshooting database structure problems.

On the other hand, people who have experience as operations research analysts and market research analysts are good candidates to apply for data analyst jobs.

When hiring a data analyst candidate, one of the most important questions that you should put on the table is how many data management applications the candidate knows and has used. Do they know some of the few most used applications in data analysis such as Spark and Tableau on Hadoop? Do they even know how to take advantage of scripting languages such as Python to manipulate and handle huge streams of data?

Data gathering and management

Unlike before when casual data analyses for businesses were done with pen and paper (and with little input to a computer), data analyses now happen inside the analyst’s computer. The massive influx of data that companies receive every day has caused analysts to rely on automated data gathering and management software programs.

Alternatively, the candidate must be capable of sorting out the data and creating quick decisions on whether a piece or set of data is useless or useful. After all, before the analysis of data starts, it is essential that the analyst have the right data at hand.

Aside from that, it is important that you measure the candidate’s logical and creative aptitude. The most common test to measure a candidate’s thinking skills is asking them how much marbles are inside a jar. The number of marbles does not matter first. What’s important is the methodologies the job candidate used to come up with the answer, the considerations he or she included, and the confidence he or she has with his explanations. And just for fun, you might want to ask what is the next winning lottery number combination.

If all the candidates were able to impress you with their answers and their background, then it will be up to the final test. The final test is to know how much information they have in your company and the nature of your business. That will be the decisive factor if the candidate is fit to have the job.

Picking the right candidate for the job is crucial. After all, you will be entrusting the future of your company or department to that person. Data analysts are the ones that can help you move your businesses upward. They can solve internal and external business problems and even identify them before they happen. You can also get your analyst to help you figure out your business if you do not know what is going on in or with it.

The post Looking For Your Company’s Data Analyst? Here’s What You Need To Know appeared first on Small Business Can.

InterTradeIreland Q2 Business Monitor: 83% of Firms Stable or Growing

InterTradeIreland’s Q2 Business Monitor Report: 83% of firms across the island either stable or growing as all-island recovery continues but at a slower pace.

Recovery continues

InterTradeIreland’s latest quarterly Business Monitor (April – June 2015) has highlighted that 83% of businesses on both sides of the border are either stable or growing, which is down five percentage points from Q1. It also reflects that firms are continuing to experience recovery across the island, albeit at a slower pace than in recent quarters.

Northern Ireland firms in growth mode catching up with Ireland

Over the last few quarters, businesses in Ireland were clearly outperforming local NI firms but figures from the Q2 report indicated more of a convergence between the two jurisdictions, with 40 per cent of firms in the Republic in growth mode compared to 36 per cent of businesses in Northern Ireland.

Larger firms driving recovery

Recovery is in place for the majority of firms, but this is happening relatively slowly with less forward motion shown this quarter. InterTradeIreland took the opportunity with the Q2 report to look at what type of firms are driving growth and what they are doing differently or better. Although moderate to rapid growth was found in businesses of all sizes, types and sectors, it was especially prevalent among larger firms.

Exporting and innovation important factors

The report confirmed that those firms that are exporting and those who take a more strategic approach to growth, such as having a formal business plan in place, were more successful. It was shown that three-quarters of moderate to rapid growth firms introduced new or improved products or services and 62 per cent implemented new processes, machinery, equipment or tools, showing that businesses that are innovating and doing things differently are three times more likely to grow.

Excellence in innovation processes, culture and skills is at the core of rapidly growing firms with these businesses more likely to have dedicated R&D staff and a more formal process in place for managing innovation than non-growth firms.

More than half of firms have the ambition to expand

53% of non-growth firms share the ambition to expand, but need support from agencies such as InterTradeIreland to help them take advantage of cross border opportunities allowing them to overcome specific capability deficiencies in areas identified by the study and translate that ambition into reality.

It is vital that business momentum picks up more quickly if the Executive is to achieve its economic objective of rebalancing the economy. However, when you look back to this time two years ago, progress has definitely been made with only 64 per cent of businesses stable and growing back in Q2 2013.

InterTradeIreland’s Business Monitor

InterTradeIreland’s quarterly Business Monitor survey is the largest and most comprehensive business survey on the island and is based on the views of more than 750 business managers across Northern Ireland and Ireland. It differs from other surveys in that it is seen to be the ‘voice of local businesses’ feeding directly from telephone interviews conducted with a robust sample of firms of all sizes across a range of sectors to track all-island economic indicators such as sales, employment, business outlook and other specific topical research areas on a quarter by quarter basis.

Further information

For more information on InterTradeIreland and their business support programmes, please visit www.intertradeireland.com.

A video and copy of the 2015 Q2 InterTradeIreland Business Monitor Executive Summary can be viewed here.

Post by Aidan Gough, Strategy and Policy Director at InterTradeIreland

The post InterTradeIreland Q2 Business Monitor: 83% of Firms Stable or Growing appeared first on Small Business Can.

6 Tips on Small Business finance

As competition between business firms is on a constant rise, it has become more and more difficult to find capital for your small business. An organization’s access to more capital is a major discerning factor that separates it from the rest. Things have changed dramatically since the 2008 Global Depression and finance to small organizations is not that readily available as it used to. Read on for 6 Tips on Small Business finance.

Hence, there are several extra milers that business owners have to do in order to secure additional finance to expand their small businesses. This becomes even more difficult due to the lack of any performance history, which doesn’t work very well in the books of investors. If you are trying to elaborate your business and need extra capital, here are some tips that might be helpful in securing finance for your organization.

1. Personal Investment is the Key

You cannot hope to risk someone else’s investment, without risking your personal capital in the business. A finance partner will not show much interest unless they make sure that you have invested a significant amount of capital in the business. Nevertheless, it is almost impossible to get debt financing for a startup unless a valuable personal asset is kept as collateral. Try to maximize the amount of personal money invested in the business to stand a better chance of approval.

2. Be Specific about the Type of Finance You’re Looking For

While most of us know it already, it is common for people to be oblivious to the different types of finance models in the market. An applicant must be clear about the type of finance they require. Whether it is working capital finance or finance to buy new equipment, business owners must have a precise idea about the purpose and the amount of capital that is required.

3. Crowdfunding

One of the most popular ways to raise small capital in a small time is through Crowdfunding. The term Crowdfunding is a way to raise money through your social contacts like family, friends and others through the internet. Although, this is more of a short-term solution to your capital needs, it can definitely work when nothing else does. Sites like Kickstarter and FundRazr etc. can be accessed by people in order to raise some short term capital for their small projects and fresh startups.

4. Microloans

Even after you have invested a significant amount of capital, there might be a chance that financers might still not provide you with the capital you need. This might be due to the lack of any credit history and any prior experience. The best way to get an easy cash advance is by applying for a microloan. This is specifically for small businesses that need some additional working capital for their day to day expenses. The minimum amount for a microloan can be as low as $500 upto $35,000. Most microloan organizations have flexible and lenient criteria and don’t require a lot of documentation.

5. Clean Credit Record

It is already clear that investing in a new business is a risky affair for most financers and you do not want to ruin your chances by having a bad credit history. Most finance companies do a thorough background check on most investors and also check their credit scores. If the investors find too many discrepancies in your credit history and a low credit score, there are slim chances that they might invest in you. Keeping a good check on your credit scores and settling all the payments that might affect your history is always a good thing before seeking an investor.

6. Long-Term Planning

While there are countless ways of securing small finance, planning for long-term business is the key to success. Investors will often look at the longevity of your business plan rather than its uniqueness. Hence, determining the amount of capital needed based on your long term plans is always the best option.

Apart from these, there are several other ways like using your credit card and applying for a bank loan to get easy finance for your small organization. Nevertheless, it is always careful planning and limiting your expenses that will help secure additional capital for your business.

The post 6 Tips on Small Business finance appeared first on Small Business Can.

This post was originally published here - http://www.smallbusinesscan.com/6-tips-on-small-business-finance/ on

3 Golden Rules of Developing Customer Loyalty on a Tight Budget

Every company clearly benefits from customer loyalty. However, your business may not have the millions of dollars that the leaders in your industry have to put towards endless layers of advertising to attract those customers. Fortunately, there are many ways that you can develop customer loyalty on a tight budget. Here are some of the top ways.

1 – Respond more quickly to customer queries than anyone in your industry

Social media, citation aggregation software and customer management software give you the ability to access everything that your customers say about you almost in real time. Never before have businesses been blessed with the ability to not only sell across oceans, but provide customer service across those same oceans without spending a great deal of money.

Nine out of every 10 people believe that companies have a responsibility to answer queries on Facebook. However, only one in four businesses actually does this. Is it any wonder that customer loyalty has dropped in the past 20 years? Use all of the information that have on your customers to create a great customer experience for each of them. From this kind of service, your business will certainly build and maintain more customer loyalty.

2 – Get to know your best customers

The Pareto rule, or the 80/20 rule of buying and selling, says that 80 percent of your sales will come from 20 percent of your customers. These 20 percent of customers are the ones who are most likely to become loyal if given the chance. However, you should know never to take anything for granted in the modern business landscape.

In order to convert the customers who are supposed to become loyal to your company, you need a consistent and wide-open two-way line of communication. This can be created through social media very easily; however, there is another level to this endeavor. Your loyal customers deserve personalized service, and no matter how small your budget may be, you can definitely afford to give it to them. Maintaining a customer costs a business around 15 percent of what it takes to build a relationship with a brand-new customer.

Hold events and contests for your best customers. If you are having a sale, incorporate location-based technology and opt in demographic lists so that your best customers truly have the first opportunity to take you up on your offers.

3 – Create programs that naturally develop customer loyalty

The first program that you can incorporate into your business is a product that requires customer loyalty. If you constantly have iterations and improvements on your product, then people will be inclined to come back for more. This is one of the basic tenants of the automobile industry – the best brands are the ones that are always announcing new features for next year’s model. For instance, if you have a product that requires listening, incorporating closed captioning services into the product is a great way to engender customer loyalty.

Aside from having products that are consistently being improved, you can also create programs that will help to engage your customer base. For instance, getting involved in the communities of your good customers is a great way to keep them engaged with your business. This does not have to be a physical location; it can very easily be an online community as well. This is why message boards and niche forums are actually more important for a small business than the major three search engines.

If your business gets involved with a charity, this is another way to ensure that you will always have customers will rally to your cause. Even if you end up giving a great deal of money away, you must consider that you would not have brought in this money if you did not have the offer in the first place. In many cases, doing business with a charity ends up being more profitable for both ends. Never mistake the nonprofit industry for an unprofitable industry – there is definitely a great deal of money being made that you can pick up on.

The post 3 Golden Rules of Developing Customer Loyalty on a Tight Budget appeared first on Small Business Can.

Using Social Content to Build Brand

When it comes to building brand, nothing is more effective than customer satisfaction. There was a time before the world of digital communications when it was referred to as ‘word of mouth’ advertising. This was the very best way for businesses to establish trust, an integral aspect of brand. In today’s culture, word of mouth advertising is still alive and well but has just taken on another form – social media. Now we rely on social media to spread the word about our likes and dislikes and this is why the intelligent marketing campaign will tap into the power of such networks as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter as well as Google+.

Why Trust Is Important

With an ever-growing number of businesses popping up each day and the ease at which consumers can switch back and forth between one brand and another, it is imperative to build a solid relationship with our customers. Relationships are built on trust, pure and simple. If you want to build and grow a solid customer base, the first thing you should be looking to do is instill trust in your products, services and even in your own reputation as a business.

Using Social Content to Instill Trust

People are social creatures so we tend to form bonds with others of like minds. Many of us have online friends and followers to our social sites numbering in the hundreds. We share and post about literally every aspect of our lives from foods that we eat to experiences we’ve had with companies we have dealt with. When looking to instil trust in a company’s brand, it would be nice to capture all those things that are being tweeted about, and posted on, in relation to our products and services. There is actually a way to do just this.

Tools for Capturing Social Content

Just as the web crawlers make their way around the internet to find and rank content for search engines, there is now a new breed of crawlers that seek out social content. If you are trying to capture what people are saying about your products, services and even your company in general, utilising a crawler that has the ultimate goal of searching social sites is the best way to go. Not only can written content be captured but pictures and videos are sought out as well. Many products have literally gone viral due to videos posted on sites like YouTube.

Redistributing Social Content

As information is captured, social content curation pulls the best content together into one place to be redistributed. This social content is then re-published to various platforms in order to be made more visible to potential customers. It can be fed live to your website, reposted on social media hubs or even powered to big screens live, in real time, as it is hitting the Web. Never before was it so easy to capture and spread positive customer feedback which is such a vital element in building brand.

Whilst it has long been known that there is huge potential in utilising social media to build brand, it wasn’t until recently that it became possible to capture and repost all those wonderful things people are saying about our businesses. What customers say about a company is so much more effective than all the advertising we can do and why it is essential to capture and repost as much as possible. If you are not taking advantage of social content to build brand, you are missing out on one of the most effective marketing tools you could possibly use.

The post Using Social Content to Build Brand appeared first on Small Business Can.

5 Tips for Managing Small Business Finances

Professional financial management is essential for the success of any business that is just getting on its feet. Money matters are very crucial since the entire basis of the business is to generate an income. Many small business owners often fail to invest in this crucial part of their business and tend to make losses or end up shutting down altogether. The following are some of the essentials of money management in business:

Open a commercial bank account

Every business should have recognition as an entity on its own. Therefore, you need to open a commercial bank account with the registered name of your business. Do not mix business money with personal money. Choose a small business friendly bank to bank with. You should deposit all the money from the business to this account. This creates a line of credit whereby you can use this bank account to get loans and other forms of financing if need be.

Bookkeeping

Proper bookkeeping is also very essential. You can either do the bookkeeping or hire an accountant. Even if you choose to do the book keeping by yourself, you still need professional help- when it comes to making tax forms and end year financial statements. You can keep your own books using convenient computer software that makes your work much easier, simply filling in the figures and letting the software do the rest. You can use this software to create invoices, keep track of payable and receivable accounts and track spending as well.

Create and track different payment options

Nowadays, customers can pay for goods and services through so many different ways. They can use checks, debit cards, credit cards or even electronic cash transfer. As a matter of convenience to your clients, you need to avail these different means of payment and track these payments as well. Cash payments are easy because there is no processing time, but when it comes to cards and electronic transfer methods, you need to develop a working system that enables continuous flow of business considering the processing time.

Establish payment terms

You need to have a clear payment terms policy that all your customers and adhere to. One of the crippling challenges that most small businesses face is the friendliness that comes from dealing with a small market and this leads to extending credit to customers who are not worth it. You need to standardize the way customers pay while still offering some form of flexibility to customers who cannot front the full payment. Have written payment terms describing deposits, instalment payments and credit extensions.

Debt collection

One of the necessary evils of running a business is debt collection. When you extend lines of credit to customers, there is always the risk that you will receive late payment or not receive any at all. It is essential to chase these payments because they are a part of the business cash flow. Debt collection is a legal process and you can hire a debt collection professional to help you collect payments from delinquent clients. It is advisable to keep the lines of communication with the customer open. Have a specific set of days after which to call a debt collector. For most businesses, 90 days is an acceptable grace period.

To know more about small business finances, visit – http://leasequit.com/.

The post 5 Tips for Managing Small Business Finances appeared first on Small Business Can.

How to Create Quality SEO Friendly Content

Content marketing is an invaluable tool to any business with an online presence, thanks to its cost-effectiveness, wide potential reach and long-term benefits. When it comes to search engine optimisation, the focus is on creating content that is highly visible on websites like Google, in order to generate traffic and leads.

In terms of creating solid, SEO friendly content, you need to consider the way search engine algorithms work, as well as the target audience of your content, and then balance these two aspects. This article presents some useful tips to make sure you strike that balance and create quality content, which works for your company.

Use SEO Tools to Steer Content

A business or SEO company has a range of tools available to them, which can steer them in the right direction when it comes to creating highly visible content. Sites like Soovle will help you to pinpoint popular search terms, while Portent’s Content Idea Generator can help you to think of interesting subjects. Then, of course, search engines like Google have a number of their own tools to make use of.

“We have used Google’s Keyword Planner to identify a list of valuable terms and phrases,” says Graham Charlton from Econsultancy. “Having identified these terms, our content team then brainstormed article ideas to target [them]. This kind of planning exercise ensures that the content we create does as much work for us as possible.”

Make Content Evergreen

An experienced search agency will often reference the importance of evergreen content – that is, content which retains its relevance for a long period of time. For example, news pieces may not be ideal for SEO, because they can become dated quickly, but advice pieces stay useful for months or even years.

In relation to search engine optimisation, the primary benefits of evergreen content are its ability to continue to generate traffic, leads and shares on social media sites long after its publication date. As a result, this enables content to occupy valuable positions in search results for much longer than current affairs articles.

Take Care With Keywords

Once you have decided upon the content you want to produce and the keywords you want to include within it, you need to consider how they are used. Many readers are familiar with the concept of SEO and while that can be a positive, it means that any jarring use of keywords will stand out like a sore thumb. For this reason, keywords need to make sense within the context of the sentences and paragraphs they are in, and relate to the heading.

In addition to context of keywords, it is also crucial to think about placement. It can be beneficial, for instance, to include popular SEO keywords in the title itself, but it can be counter-productive to place your keywords in close proximity of one another.

Remember to Include Images

Finally, it is worth remembering that graphics can also play a valuable role in your SEO strategy, helping your content to show up in image searches, like Google Images. The most important steps are to include an alt tag (the ‘label’ of your image) so that search engine crawlers know what it is about and are able to index it. Also ensure the file name is descriptive and appropriate for the image.

“If you spend hours crafting the perfect post, don’t miss out on the chance to optimise your images for maximum search engine benefit,” says Derek Halpern, a marketing expert and the founder of Social Triggers. As a further tip, due to the fact that page load times can impact SEO, smaller images are generally better, where possible.

The post How to Create Quality SEO Friendly Content appeared first on Small Business Can.

Monthly Archives: August 2015