By Legal Futures’ Associate Allianz Legal Protection
Traditional marketing – flyers, TV and radio advertising, etc. – has its place. And, alongside email, it’s been a popular way to grow and maintain market share. But, given the extent of growth in the digital space, as well as added focus on the protection of customer data, this is moving on.
This two-part blog focuses on the web and content related side of digital marketing. Before we delve into key themes, a fundamental starting point is having a professional website that works. Essentially, your website is your shop window to products and services – it must be easy for the user to find what they’re looking for! Your company logo should be high resolution and the look and feel of your brand should be consistent throughout.
Content writing
One of the ways to get your website to the top of search engines like Google is with high quality content. This isn’t about churning out endless articles and blogs; it’s about producing relevant, engaging and well-written content, relating to solutions you offer. Your customers should benefit from the content you provide them in some way. If they have a problem or a need (that you can help with) and type it into Google, ideally your content should be on the first page of results, providing a gateway to your business.
We’d recommend, depending on the size of your firm, publishing one blog or market-related article each month, with reactive news such as business and people updates in between. You can also use your own insight to generate topics and debate. They shouldn’t be too long, should be split up by sub-headings and written in a way to make them easy for the reader to digest. Text heavy content is too much; good use of bullet points and small paragraphs helps keep your audience engaged.
Imagery
A picture says a thousand words and can help bring your website to life. However, it can be detrimental too; imagery should be consistent and relevant to your brand. You must have a valid licence to use your imagery for the right purpose and timeframe. You can’t just use images from a Google image search. There are a few good royalty free image websites out there, such as Pixabay and Pexels. If an image is royalty free then you can use it however you like.
If you’re ever not sure about using a certain image, check the website’s terms and conditions, specifically areas about reproducing or repurposing images.
User experience
As well as these hints and tips, ensuring a good user experience will also help with your SEO ratings. Start with your homepage – it should be easy for users to find what they’re looking for, whether it is:
- contact details
- product information
- company history
- making a complaint, or
- your privacy information.
It’s also important that users can navigate easily once they’ve got to the right page for them.
Combining good user experience with high quality content and relevant imagery strengthens your company’s online presence, makes it easier for your customers to get what they want and provides a good foundation to more in-depth digital marketing techniques – which we’ll cover in a future post.
We’re here to help
Allianz offers marketing consultancy across all areas, from digital to events to communications. If you’d like to know more then please contact your account manager.
