There was a time when agencies would throw out an advert for a product and just hope that it succeeded. It was hard to judge the success of one over another, so many went for a scattergun approach. In today’s digital world, that’s all changed. We are able to see exactly how many people see your Facebook advert or visit your latest blog or have connected through Instagram, and how many of those have bought a room, booked a table or bought a service. Performance marketing agencies like POSH are able to see exactly what works, and focus on your successes to bring more clients. Based in Scotland and serving all the UK, POSH Agency has your data at our fingertips. 

What is performance marketing?

Performance marketing is a type of online marketing and advertising where advertisers only pay when a certain type of action happens. This could be a click, a sale or a download. It’s all data-led, meaning it requires a focused strategy from the outset. Ultimately, we are able to measure your performance and aim to get you in front of a new audience. If you want to make a sale, we’ll help you get there.

Is POSH a performance marketing agency?

Yes we are! At POSH, we love data, and we love what we can do with it. The advantage of partnering with a specialist performance marketing agency like us is that not only do we create your website, but we manage the data too. This means from day one we can strategise about the best way forward with you, whilst testing all the different ideas and options we come up with until we find what works for you and your customers.

This way, we can save you time by only promoting ads which work, which also saves you money too!

How we work with you in digital insights

Our experienced team come with years of knowledge of the digital world, working with companies in the hospitality sector and beyond. We’ll meet you and talk to you in depth to understand you, your business and its needs. We’ll figure out how to best spend your budget for maximum return on investment, and then start building tangible results.

As we go, we’ll refine what works and jettison anything that isn’t up to scratch. Our data analysis keeps us ahead of the game, and ready to tackle all the challenges that come with online sales today. We’ll make sure your campaigns are winning ones. 

Use POSH for performance marketing

Digital competition is fierce, which is why you deserve to be in a trusted pair of hands. For years, POSH has led businesses to great highs online thanks to being one of the best performance marketing agencies around. With us in your corner, from web design to the sales funnel, we’ve got your back. Get in touch with Jenny today to understand more about how we can help you. 

The post What are performance marketing agencies? appeared first on POSH Agency.

Pros of ChatGPT

AI has become more sophisticated in its writing. It is able to knock up a 500 or 1,000 word blog in a matter of seconds. And, it’s free. You can sit at your desk and within five minutes have a fully written blog using any keywords you would like and upload it with a couple of images and boom, job done. And yes, AI can even generate the images for you, saving you even more time and money. 

Multiply that over the course of a day and you could be churning out thousands of words, very easily, without the need to do any research, editing or understanding of the topic yourself. For only a few pounds, you could probably find someone on Fiverr to do it for you whilst you enjoy a round of golf or some time in front of the TV. This will result in a consistent publishing schedule that will ensure your website is constantly refreshed with new content – a key aspect of being Google-friendly. 

ChatGPT can also create a variety of content types on a whim. From a funny blog post to a serious article, or from a LinkedIn post to Memorandum of Understanding, AI is versatile. Of course, it’s not just the finished product it produces. It can deliver outline strategies, article structures and even talk ideas out with you. Sometimes it feels like there’s nothing it can’t do!

Cons of ChatGPT

So we’ve established that AI can generate significant amounts of various content in very little time. However, it means if you’re doing that, then so are millions of people all over the world. Everyone is using the same regurgitated content on their sites and ultimately not producing anything new. How can you stand out? And what will make Google put you at the top of its organic search results over a competitor doing exactly the same?

Furthermore, it might even be making stuff up! “Hallucination” is a real problem where AI gets a bit confused and starts to make things up. If that’s then posted online, then other AI could pick it up, eventually spreading a load of nonsense. This will not reflect well on you or your business, and you will quickly lose the trust of your customers and Google. 

Without human oversight, ChatGPT productions can result in poorly written, poorly researched and sub-standard work. Online users are quickly becoming able to pick up on what was ‘written by a robot’, and may feel that ultimately if you can’t be bothered putting the time into your web content, why should they put in the time reading it? The same applies to Google – it much prefers text written by a human (and yes, it’s very good at detecting when it isn’t). 

For best results, use Human Intelligence!

Using ChatGPT for SEO has its place in digital marketing. However, it can’t do it on its own and needs a human  to make it useful. Whether that’s re-writing or proofreading, a person needs to see and be able to make any changes in advance of publication. Best of all, however, is a researched article or blog with accurate information and, if possible, some unique local insight to a place or activity that adds depth and simply doesn’t exist elsewhere online. Only people can do this – and POSH does it the best! That’s some of us up there, ready to get to work for you. Get in touch with us for more information on working together and helping you grow online. 

The post Using ChatGPT for SEO: pros and cons appeared first on POSH Agency.

A strategy-first approach to digital

There’s no point rushing into digital. In fact, the opposite is usually best. We will take time with you, one-on-one, to study you, your business and, importantly, your customer base. There’s no point advertising on Instagram if your target audience is on Tik-Tok. We’ll work out where your potential clients are, and only then will we began planning out the best ways to attract them.

We have many years of experience dealing with a range of clients, primarily in the hospitality arena. This means we already come equipped with background knowledge of what works, what is a waste of money and what is best for different types of business. 

Here’s a free tip – if you are looking to grow your business online, then organically developing your website takes time, but reaps rewards. You will need a digital strategy to make sure everything is in place before you start, and we’ll work with you to develop a personalised approach to encourage the growth you expect.

Creative thinking every step of the way

If you are looking for a refreshed, modern website, then POSH will do it all. We’ll design an eye-catching, mobile friendly site and complete it with SEO-optimised content with the aim for it to rank highly on Google searches. 

We’ll source images, and make sure the user journey is optimal. We can write engaging blogs to keep your website active and attract brand new customers, setting you up as a reliable and useful site. And we’ll do all of this creatively, engaging your audience from page 1. 

Scottish based, global reach

Headquartered in Scotland, we have a global outlook with clients across the country, whose customers come from all over the world. So if you are targeting local anglers to stay at your small lodge, or American tourists to use your hotel as a golfing base, we’ve got the background and strategies to help you target them. And everything in between, of course!

Happy customers

We’ve worked with so many happy customers in the past and their success is what keeps us going! Here are some testimonials from them. So if you’d like to POSH-up, get in touch with Jenny, founder of the best digital marketing agency in Scotland and let us develop your website, write your blogs and help you with your digital journey. 

The post POSH – the best digital marketing agency in Scotland appeared first on POSH Agency.

Where to start marketing?

Marketing a small business is hard. Seeing it thrive is infinitely harder, but here we are, 16 years later and POSH is still leading the way in developing eye-catching, SEO optimised websites for businesses across the country. 

Over the years, the strategies, tools, and approaches in digital marketing have undergone significant transformations. Social media has changed how we promote ourselves and our clients’ work, developing a new way of talking which simply didn’t exist 10 or 15 years ago.  In this blog post, we’ll delve into the top 3 lessons we have learned about marketing for small businesses and how these insights have shaped the way we approach every new commission today.

1. Embrace Digitalisation

Marketing used to be TV and newspaper led. Not any more. The rise of the digital era has revolutionised marketing for small businesses. It meant we could stand shoulder-to shoulder on the same platforms as the largest businesses like Coke, Apple and Disney. We could place adverts in places we knew our customers would be, and track how successful these ads were. Using Facebook, Instagram and TikTok has been crucial to allow small businesses to be heard above large corporations.

Find out more about our digital marketing services here.

Key lesson: Embrace change. Nothing stays the same for long, and if you aren’t at the forefront of new ways of doing things, you will be left behind playing catchup. 

2. Listen

No matter how big or small businesses are, you are always going to be dealing with a person. Whether that’s on the other end of the phone, over Teams or in person, you need to be able to make a connection. The best way to do this is to listen to what is being said, and ask questions.

Small businesses thrive on word of mouth, and this involves listening to customer feedback. When a customer gets great service, they are often keen to share this with their friends and family. This is the sort of marketing that money can’t buy! By being personable with everyone and listening to their needs, we can help ensure our business is the sort they will recommend.

Key lesson: When we listen, we can begin to see opportunities for marketing and business growth.

3. Content marketing drives results

There was a time when writing an online blog was seen as a hobby, like writing a diary. Today, blogs are a cornerstone of the web, and content marketing is crucial in pushing websites in front of the right set of eyes. 

Content marketing such as blog posts, videos, or social media content, providing valuable and relevant information to a target audience. It sets you up as a position of authority, making potential customers trust you which, in turn, increases the likelihood that they will buy from you. Good content also engages in search engine optimisation, which makes your search results appear high when someone Googles what you do. 

Find out more about our search engine optimisation services here.

Key lesson: Provide accessible, regular and relevant content to encourage new visitors to your site.

This time next year, Rodney…

We’ve learned plenty of lessons growing POSH and how to market a small business. But these three stand head and shoulders above the rest as being the basis for developing a successful enterprise. Embrace change, listen to clients and create worthwhile content. As an online marketing agency, by continuing following those lessons, we look forward to continue our growth for many more years to come. If you’d like to join us and hear more about how we can market your small business, get in touch with Jenny today.

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SERP (Search Engine Results Page)

SERP refers to the page displayed by search engines in response to a user’s query. Understanding SERP features such as featured snippets, knowledge panels, and local packs is crucial for optimising website content. This will help you to appear prominently in search results. By understanding how to get content onto a potential customer’s SERP, you can aim to increase sales. 

SEO (Search Engine Optimisation)

SEO is the practice of optimising your website content to rank higher in SERPs (see, you’re already getting the hang of this jargon!). One way to help with this is to use keywords – these are the phrases that people use to search online. By incorporating them in useful content, you can encourage more people to visit your site and attract more organic traffic from search engines like Google.

We’ve spoken at length before at SEO and the basics always remain the same. If you create high-quality copy that is focused on your business – and provide it consistently – then you are over halfway to ensuring you’ll get good search results. If you would like help providing timely content for your website to help with SEO, then just give us at POSH a shout.

PPC (Pay-Per-Click)

PPC is a digital advertising model where advertisers pay a fee each time their ad is clicked. It’s found on Google Ads and Facebook Ads. PPC allows users to create targeted campaigns to promote their content and drive traffic to their websites. By bidding on keywords and demographics, digital marketers can reach their target audience effectively and track the performance of their ads in real-time. It is a good way to advertise as you only pay each time your advert is clicked on, as opposed to every time someone simply views your advert. This means that you only pay for times a potential customer clicks on your advert.

CTA (Call to Action)

A CTA is a prompt that encourages readers to take a specific action. This could be subscribing to a newsletter, downloading a resource, or making a purchase. It’s vital to include clear and compelling CTAs on your website. Content like blog posts can help drive conversions and engage your audience. Whether it’s a clickable button, an image or a text link, CTAs should be strategically placed throughout your blog to guide readers towards desired actions. For example, do you want your web visitors to book a stay at your hotel? Then ensure you have clear “Book Now” buttons on your site, especially at the end of blogs which tell them about your wonderful accommodation. Parliament House Hotel in Edinburgh has excellent CTAs throughout their site.

And if you want blog readers to find out more about you, then direct them to an about us page like this!

ROI (Return on Investment)

ROI measures the effectiveness of your digital marketing efforts. It compares the cost of investment to the resulting benefits or revenue generated. For websites, ROI can be tracked through various metrics such as website traffic, engagement rates, lead generation, and ultimately, conversion rates. By analysing ROI metrics, we can evaluate the success of digital marketing campaigns. This can help direct future strategies. Here at POSH we can do this analysing for you. Our keen eye, educated through hundreds of hours of studying spreadsheets, will be sure to help you get a solid ROI.

Bounce Rate

Bounce rate tells us the percentage of visitors who land on one webpage but then leave without interacting further. A high bounce rate is often a bad thing, especially for those in the hospitality profession. That’s because it means there’s a good chance that the user did not get what they wanted form your site, and so went to another one instead. If you are looking to bring customers to your business, you usually want to attract and keep them on your page until they purchase goods or services. Want to bring your bounce rate down and sales up? Speak to us at POSH and we can help.

In conclusion, understanding these types of phrases is only the beginning. Mastering the art of digital marketing is a long process, so why not let us join you on your journey and we can help your website really shine? Get in touch with Jenny today. 

The post Decoding Digital Marketing: Essential Terms To Know appeared first on POSH Agency.

We’ve put together 11 top tips to consider when planning your design. They are all key elements to ensure the success of your site, and are something to discuss with your designer. 

1. Great user experience

A good website is one where users can easily find the information they are looking for. This means having a clear button to your booking page, information on your rooms and rates and any special offers you may have.

Your potential guests will have hundreds of hotel or restaurant options to choose from and if they can’t find what they need within a few seconds, they will simply go to a competitor’s website instead. For example – how easy is it to check availability on Eagle Brae’s website?

2. Responsive design

Not everyone is using your website on a Windows desktop or iPhone. There are many different screen sizes available, including Androids phones, tablets and laptops. Make sure your website can adapt to any screen your potential customer may be using.

3. High quality images

People look at images first on websites, so you need to make sure they are high quality in order to draw them in further. We can arrange for a professional photographer to make your hospitality business stand out online. For example, look at the stunning photography of the lodges at Loch Lomond Waterfront.

4. Compelling content

Before anyone spends money online, they like to ensure they are spending it wisely. You can help in this decision by providing quality content about your business, including pages about your rooms or food, and even blogs on daily life in your area. Adding a bit of personality to your writing can really help you engage with potential customers online, further encouraging them to book. For example, Mackays Hotel in Wick sits on the shortest street in the world, and they use this to engage guests. Do you have anything unique that can hook in an audience?

5. Online booking

Whilst some people do still prefer to book over the phone, online booking is preferred by many. This means customers can see all available dates and even change their dates themselves without needing to call. You are also able to get an overview of all availability for the coming months.

6. Encourage reviews

Ask previous customers to leave reviews. This can help future customers decide to book with you. You may decide to host reviews externally on your social media, like Kingsmills Hotel.

7. Interactive features

Virtual tours of rooms or a chat assistant can help people decide to book. This is because you are immediately engaging with them and building a connection. An excellent example of both of these features can be found at Ness Walk in Inverness.

8. Loading Speed

Fast loading times are crucial for retaining visitors and improving SEO rankings. If your site is too slow to load, then people will simply click away and look at the next hit on their Google search results. We can help you optimise your website pages.

9. Consistent Branding

Each page of your site should be consistent in branding and tone of voice. Pages should feel a part of the same family, just like here on our own website!

10. Accessibility

It’s vital to ensure your website is accessible to all potential customers, including those who use page readers. We can do this by making sure your site uses alt text and readable font sizes.

11. Security

Finally, when dealing with people’s payment details, it’s important to factor in site security to keep them safe. We can help you decide what is best for your needs.

By incorporating these elements you can ensure the best hospitality design for your website. If you’d like to discuss any of this further, or would like to work with us on your project, just get in touch!

The post The best hospitality website design appeared first on POSH Agency.

Having worked with all sorts of businesses in the hospitality sector, we know what works best for businesses. Whether you run a local bed and breakfast full of charm or a hotel in a bustling city, we’ll be able to adapt our services to best suit your business needs.

What separates us when it comes to hotel websites?

Our team is passionate about their work and will work hard to help your business soar. When you work with POSH, you’re not just hiring a team of hard workers, but a team that knows the hospitality business like the back of its hand.

We have a track record of creating elegant websites that bring customers back time and time again. Our websites are built with both your business and your customers in mind. We want to make sure that your website is easy to crawl and index for SEO purposes. But more than anything, that makes sense to your customers and converts leads into sales. Booking a night or a holiday away will be smooth and easy for your customers.

Our work

If you’re not sure what we mean when we say that what we do stands out from the crowd, browse some of our work. Our clients are more than happy with the results of the work our team has done with them. And we’re excited to continue working with them to improve on those results.

Kingsmills Hotel

Kingsmills Hotel is a luxury 4-star hotel in Inverness, with luxurious rooms, incredible dining options, and spa facilities. When Kingsmills Hotel came to us, their website was not working for them. We worked together to rebuild the website and implemented a highly focused SEO campaign. Since working with us, Kingsmills Hotel’s overall online revenue has increased by 503% annually.

It doesn’t stop there, though. The hospitality industry changes all the time, and as the experts, we continue to work with the folks at Kingsmills Hotel to maintain their website. This allows us to help guide their hotel website and their business in the right direction.

Parliament House Hotel

Our team has been working with Parliament House Hotel for 11 years now. In that time, we have worked together on everything from SEO to PR, constantly adapting our relationship to fulfil the business’s needs. We understand that businesses change over time, and so we’re always happy to work on a range of projects with clients.

Most recently, during COVID, we rebuilt the Parliament House Hotel website. This was a big task after such a long working relationship focused on creating pages with precise SEO targeting! It worked out incredibly, though, with the hotel having since increased its online revenue by 280% per year.

As it stands, POSH is responsible for Parliament House Hotel’s social media, SEO, digital strategy, and newsletters. We hope to continue providing the team at Parliament House with outstanding results.

What makes good hotel booking websites?

Over our 15 years in business, we have learned what it takes to create a really good hotel booking site. Through plenty of user testing, we’ve made lots of discoveries about what works really well, and what doesn’t. We have skilled staff who can help your website and business when it comes to:

SEO management and cracking content

Getting your website to rank on SERPs can be difficult, especially when the algorithm changes all the time. Our team of highly skilled SEO content specialists keep on top of trends and write cracking content. They make sure that the clients we work with are still ranking well on Google so they get more conversions and a higher ROI.

UX web design for smooth, elegant websites

As well as our talented web developers, we have a team of UX web designers who craft beautiful, user-friendly websites. And making sure that the websites serve the business while providing the business’ customers with a great experience. They focus on building a reputation and making sure customers come back time and time again. And you can choose between a bespoke site or a budget one.

PPC advertising and more . . .

Our PPC advertising experts offer the opportunity to increase website traffic using clever campaigns. Improving revenue and keeping business flowing for our clients!

That’s not even half of it, though. To create truly wonderful hotel websites, you need experts in analytics, social media marketing, and a solid digital strategy. And a team who will work their absolute hardest for you in every aspect of digital marketing. But where do you find a team like that?

Here! We are that team. Read more about our web design services and contact us today to see how we can help your business (and website) be the destination to visit.

The post THE experts for hotel websites appeared first on POSH Agency.

All of our feedback is taken and used to shape the way that we continue to work, ensuring that we are consistently providing our clients with the best service possible.

Our services

We offer a large range of services to help businesses maintain their traffic and to generate more ROI and conversions. Whether you’re looking into UX web design, website development, digital strategy, social media marketing, analytics or SEO services, we can help. We become part of your team and support you all the way. We also offer digital marketing packages to suit all budgets.

Just like we did for Apex Hotels, who have said that our ‘guidance and support’ was ‘invaluable’. We helped Apex to strengthen their position, so much so that the company exceeded their revenue expectations in the early months post-launch. Likewise, David Brown of Rugby Plus told us how much he loves ‘the drive and enthusiasm’ our team has shown while helping his business. He recognises that ‘the continual support from POSH’ keeps Rugby Plus achieving highly successful results.

In addition to our enthusiasm, everyone on the team at POSH is highly-skilled and knowledgeable. We will ‘meet every challenge’, as Table Manors found. This leaves our clients ‘delighted with the result’ of the websites we create and work on for them. Those we represent as a PR agency are ‘thrilled to be represented by POSH’, and we have a ‘great blogger and journalist outreach’ to provide you with the best digital strategies and PR.

For more about the services we offer, take a look here and see how we can help you to improve your online presence. And take a look at our client testimonials below.

What have our clients said about us in their testimonials?

So what exactly do our clients have to say? We’ve given you sneak peaks into our clients’ satisfaction, but here are a handful of our clients’ reviews of our stellar services.

Kingsmills Hotel

We worked with Kingsmills Hotel on their website, we manage their social media and we created a digital strategy for them. The sales and marketing manager, Joyce Arbuckle said,

“I have worked with POSH for 10 years now and can highly recommend them. They deliver digital solutions for our hotel with creativity and enthusiasm. Their engagement with our product and market has been outstanding and a huge plus when creating the marketing initiatives on our behalf.”

Islay Cottages and Peatzeria

We built new websites for Islay Cottages and the Peatzeria. And we make sure they have fresh content optimised for SEO to bring in new customers. David and Caroline Thompson said,

“We have used the POSH agency for some years now, they have now created websites for two businesses for us on Islay.  You really feel they are working in partnership with you.  Virtually all of our business is online, and our bookings have increased dramatically.”

And went on to say,

“Our ranking has been consistently high since POSH started to manage our digital marketing for us.  This directly results in much higher levels of business, great company to work with.”

Persabus Farm and Pottery Cafe

We built a fantastic new website for Persabus Farm and Pottery Centre and helped with content for it. The owner, Rosemary Fletcher said that she is really happy with the overall design and layout.

She says that the website is outstanding and surpassed her website dreams! She finished her client testimonial with,

“I really appreciate all of your help, support and encouragement with my written pieces and then for the amazing professional job you have done in processing it all into such a fantastic site.”

Want to read more? Check out our client testimonials here. We hope to add yours to the list soon! Give us a call to see what our team can help you with.

If you want to take a peek at our work, look at our client list and explore their websites!

The post Our client testimonials appeared first on POSH Agency.

There are two main aspects of website design: UI and UX. UI stands for the user interface and refers to the screens, buttons, and toggles. Predominantly visual elements. Whereas UX stands for user experience, and refers to the interaction that visitors have with the website. UI has been the focus of many websites and apps for a long time. But in order to succeed, a website needs to have good UX and UI design. Here at POSH, we know how important user experience design is to websites, and we have a skilled team that works to help companies to perfect their website with excellent UX design.

What exactly is web UX design?

Web UX design considers every single element that will shape a visitor’s experience when visiting a website. It considers how each element will make the visitor feel. It aims to make the website easy to use, efficient, fast, relevant, and pleasant to use. The goal of a good UX designer is to ensure that each visitor leaves the webpage as satisfied as possible.

How does user experience design work?

Using product development, strategy, market research and design knowledge, user experience designers aim for an intelligent, seamless experience for the user. They allow businesses to better meet their online customers’ expectations and needs.

Generally speaking, web UX design is done in five stages. These stages include:

• Research and understanding
• Prototyping and wireframing
• Testing
• Launching
• Iterating

Research

In the first stage, UX designers will do user research, market research and historical analysis. This is done in order to understand the market and what your competitors are doing. The designers will map out the goals, as user personas, and explore previous iterations of the website. All of this research allows designers to set a clear path for the website’s design.

Prototype

The web UX design team will then create a prototype and wireframe. This outlines how the website will work. Much like a building blueprint. Usually, the prototype will be used to get feedback so that the team can hone the UX even further.

Testing

After that, testing can begin. A series of tests will be run to identify any existing or potential issues that may damage the user experience. The goal is for the web UX designers to spot anything that may be confusing, slow, or not worth further development.

Iteration

The new pages can then be launched, although often in stages. Any issues from testing can be fixed, and a soft launch or beta launch can be done for additional feedback if necessary. After the launch, the web UX design team will work on iteration, where they continue testing their work and researching ways to improve it. UX design is never just ‘done’ – it can always be improved!

Can UX design really improve your website?

It makes sense that UI can impact your website’s performance, but can UX really help to improve your website? Is it important?

The answer is yes. Web UX design is really important, and a great way to improve your website’s performance. The long-term effects of good UX are:

Improved reputation

Word-of-mouth marketing can be paramount in achieving more traffic when it comes to running a business. Whether you’re running a hotel website or an e-commerce site, the happier your visitors are when they use your webpage, the more likely they are to recommend it to their friends.

Someone who is kept waiting at loading pages. Or who stumbles across random, ill-thought-out pages when trying to navigate a web page is unlikely to praise the site to their colleagues or friends. When a page loads seamlessly, and navigation is easy and effortless, people are likely to be much happier!

A better reputation directly correlates to better traffic. Reputation is essentially free advertising, so it’s important to make the most of it!

Improved visitor loyalty

When visitors to your page know that they can trust your website to work time and time again, they are likely to return. By improving your web UX design, you can improve customer loyalty, and build a community of customers who visit your web page time and time again.

Obviously, customers prefer a website with good UX design. 66% of people are even willing to pay for a better experience. And 86% of customers would also say that the experience on a web page matters just as much as the services it hosts!

Improved conversions and ROI

Having improved reputation and loyalty, it makes sense that improved ROI conversions would follow. This is perhaps the most important effect of user experience design. So ensuring great UX design is a no-brainer.

In fact, studies have shown that good web UX design can increase conversion rates by as much as 200%. And can help a website to reach a conversion rate as high as 400%! A recent study has shown that every $1 invested into UX earns $100, a 9,900% ROI.

Where to start with UX design?

If this all sounds brilliant, but you don’t know where to begin with your website’s journey into the world of UX design, you’re in luck. At POSH, we have a wonderful team of UX designers who can help you to take your website to the next level. Give us a call to see what we can do for your site and user experience.

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What is SEO?

SEO stands for search engine optimisation, and it is essentially a series of rules that help companies make sure their website pages achieve high rankings in search results. Without SEO, landing pages, articles, and blogs, would just get lost in the ether.

When a webpage follows SEO guidelines, it is much more likely to bring more traffic to the website. People searching for services, answers, or even the news, are unlikely to scroll much further than the first few suggestions on their search engine. In fact, studies have shown that the top search result on Google will receive 31.7% of the clicks, and the top three will share 75.1% of the clicks.

Anything below those top three will still get traffic, of course, but not the most traffic possible. And nobody wants that! By understanding and implementing SEO tactics, businesses, and content creators can ensure that their web pages earn a place in those top few spots.

How does SEO work?

It’s impossible to correctly use SEO on web pages without first understanding how it works. Once you know what it is you’re doing and why you’re doing it, SEO becomes much easier to understand.

The first thing you need to know is that every search engine has crawlers, sometimes called spiders, which spread out across the internet to find new web pages. When they find new web pages, they are added to the search engine’s index. Then, when someone searches for something, the search engine will check its index and provide the most relevant web pages, ordered in accordance with their deemed relevancy. Much like asking a librarian for the index cards for the section that has books on the subject you want.

SEO works by increasing the relevancy of your web page. It targets specific keywords and phrases, links, and alt texts to ensure that crawlers can accurately work out what your web page is about. But that’s not to say that your web pages should just be full of random keywords and hyperlinks left, right, and centre. In fact, SEO works best when you try to understand what your audience is searching for, and then try to satisfy those needs with your page.

The basics of being an SEO content writer

In order to effectively implement SEO tactics as a business or a writer, you will need to do some SEO training. This will help you to really grasp the importance of SEO, as well as learn all of the key skills you need to maintain a good SEO strategy. For now, though, let’s take a look at the basics of SEO management. The key elements for an SEO writer are:

Crawlability

Like we said, Google and other search engines will crawl and index your web page. If the crawlers find your webpage to be difficult to crawl, perhaps because your sitemap is faulty, or there are no internal links, then they will not be able to report all of your web pages to the index.

If you’re not in the index, you are not going to come up on the SERP (search engine result page). This can be a catastrophe regarding traffic, but fortunately, it is often easy to solve.

High quality content

Content is king! Crawlers prefer it when your webpage has a strong standard of content. This means avoiding automatically generated content, or duplicate content, as well as content that has very little substance or is just full of unnecessary key words. And the internal links to the page as mentioned above. After all, if your website doesn’t link to the page you have written, why should the search engine offer it in results? You clearly don’t think it is important enough to link to.

In some cases, pages cannot help but be ‘low-quality’, when they’re doorway pages or pages that exist for a very specific purpose. Generally, though, it is best to use few of these and to focus on high-quality pages and content.

Keyword research and using keywords

When crawling your page, search engines need to be able to determine what it is your web page is talking about. To do so, they need to be able to pick up some keywords. Too many people take this to mean that they should stuff their pages full of keywords – that’s not the case.

The best way to use keywords is to do plenty of research into what your audience is looking for. This is called keyword research. You can then use these keywords to shape your content strategy, using them sparingly in your title, heading, and meta description. And then a spattering throughout the copy. This ensures that crawlers know what your page is all about without thinking it is spam.

Backlinks

Unlike the first two SEO elements, this is not something that you can add to your web page. It is known, for that reason, as an off-page SEO element.

Having backlinks can be greatly beneficial to your website, but they can be hard to build. Backlinks are links from other websites to yours, and they can really help to improve where you rank. Search engines will look at how many backlinks you have and where they are coming from. Backlinks from high-authority websites are worth more than spam or low-authority websites. But beware! There are lots of companies out there promising tons of backlinks for a price. Avoid these. Search engines will be able to differentiate between these and genuine backlinks from relevant sites.

How to make your first step with SEO

The key takeaway from this blog is that if you want to become an SEO writer or specialist, you need to really understand the following:

• SEO
• Keywords
• Backlinking
• SERPs
• SEO strategy
• And more

If you’ve never worked on SEO before, setting up an SEO strategy can be daunting. But don’t panic. There are plenty of ways to slowly introduce yourself to it, like SEO training, or hiring an SEO specialist like us here at POSH. To get you started, here’s our Key to SEO Success.

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But firstly, what is it? In simple terms, SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is all about making your website more visible on search engines like Google. The more visible your website is, the more traffic you’ll get, which can lead to more sales or engagement. SEO helps you to make sure that your website is being ‘served up’ to the right people, searching the Internet for what you are offering.

Implementing SEO techniques, and doing the necessary research can make a world of difference. But, what a lot of people don’t think about is conducting an SEO review of their website.

Too often, businesses assume that once the SEO techniques are in place, they can leave it at that. In reality, though, SERPS (search engine results pages) are constantly changing because the algorithms that the search engines use change. An SEO review of your website can help keep your website at the top of the page. And POSH is here to help!

What is an SEO review?

An SEO review, sometimes called an SEO audit, allows you to evaluate how well your website is optimised for search engines. It can be used to identify errors and any issues that may prevent the website from performing and ranking well on SERPs. After all, every business wants its website to be at the top of page one!

What will an SEO review look at?

A comprehensive SEO review will at how your website is structured. And it will look at how easy the pages are to index. It will evaluate any keywords used, competitor benchmarking, the on-page SEO, and your backlink profile.

In essence, an SEO review aims to produce an SEO report that shows you what search engines will see when they look at your website. It’s like doing a mock exam before the real thing, and shows you the areas you need to improve on! Here at POSH, our SEO experts regularly provide SEO reviews for our clients. Give us a call to find out more.

Why is an SEO review important?

If you’re still not convinced as to why you need an SEO review here are 5 things that an SEO report can help with.

Determining which keywords your pages are ranking for

You may be using a huge number of keywords on your pages. But without an SEO report, you won’t know which of them you’re actually ranking for! We can help you figure out which keywords you’re performing well for on SERPs.

This allows proper optimisation of your content. Giving you the opportunity to implement any SEO techniques from those pages elsewhere if possible. At POSH, we can help you through this process, with our SEO experts raring to get your website performing as best it can.

Showing you which keywords are actually bringing in any traffic

You can rank for a keyword without that translating into traffic (or translating into the wrong kind of traffic). An SEO review will show you which of your keywords are bringing in traffic to the site, showing you exactly which pages and articles are doing well, versus what is not.

With this knowledge, we can work on your highly-ranking pages to get them to bring more traffic in. And we can work on those pages that aren’t doing so well to improve them.

Shines a light on any out-of-date SEO practices that you’re using

The nature of the IT world is that everything changes, and pretty quickly. Search engine algorithms are no different. If you want to rank on the SERPs, you need to be able to keep up with the algorithmic changes that occur.

One of the easiest ways to do this is by booking an SEO review or an SEO audit. It will quickly shine a light on any aged techniques that are holding your website back.

Prevents your visitors from running into broken pages

There’s nothing more frustrating than trying to buy something or book somewhere only to then have the Error: 404 message pop up on your screen. Customers will often immediately click away from your page when this happens, and it can ruin the user experience for them.

By booking an SEO review with POSH, you can ensure your visitors do not run into 404 errors and keep your website’s architecture nice and smooth.

Discovers any differences between desktop and mobile sites

Mobile pages need to run just as smoothly as desktop pages. After all, in 2019 53% of traffic came from mobile users. And this can often be where SEO gets forgotten. An SEO review will show you whether there are any discrepancies between how your pages work on both. And will highlight any issues with your mobile website. If the SEO report shows issues with your mobile site, then this is definitely something to put at the top of your SEO task list!

If you’re feeling overwhelmed by it all, or want experts to take a look, contact us today for SEO help.

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Glasgow is a bright, beautiful and booming city. With so many new businesses forming and existing companies growing, it’s a great time to think about how well your website is performing. Our POSH team have local knowledge of the area and our clients love that we can talk to them about how promoting the city can help develop their own business. Posh’s SEO services in Glasgow are one way to do just that.

SEO company in Glasgow

Search engine optimisation or SEO is all about making sure Google can read your website, understand what you do and serve up this information to those searching for it. A well optimised website means Google can trust that the information it offers to its customers is accurate and relevant. Our job is to make sure this happens and that you are at the top of the list. After all, have you ever searched on the second, third or fourth page of Google search results? No, neither have we.

Some companies want to target local people whilst others aim for tourists from across the world. There is so much opportunity in Glasgow that deciding on the best strategy can be difficult. This is where we come in and can help you find focus. By doing so, we can make sure your site targets your potential customers, increasing your online visibility. 

SEO is a long game and takes time to rise in the rankings. By working together in partnership with you, we can ensure we grow your site and enhance your SEO over time. 

Web design Glasgow

We use WordPress to design our websites. This is a creative tool which lets us create original and bespoke websites. Need an online shop? You’ve got it. Want to have a hotel booking system integrated? No problem. Whatever you need, we’ll find a way, and make sure users can navigate around it easily.

Our websites are all responsive and mobile friendly.  From mobiles to tablets to gaming PCs, your website is going to look fantastic on them all. 

SEO in Glasgow

If you’d like to find out a bit more about us, you can read more about our services here. When you are ready, get in touch online or give our friendly POSH team a call on 0141 278 6702

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