Following a 1400% increase in interest for the search term ‘business cost savings’¹ between March to June 2022, digital marketing and website development specialist, Fishtank Agency, highlights five ways you can save costs as a business online:

1. Create a 12-month Strategic Marketing Plan with a Set Budget/Limited Expenses

Developing a marketing strategy that aligns with your overall business plan and objectives is essential to building resilience. Understanding your target audience, their wants and needs, and your own goals and key performance indicators (KPIs) as a business will not only give you clarity and results but also save you money.

Planning 12 months ahead helps avoid future uncertainties and reduces the risk of failure. It allows time to coordinate tasks and distribute responsibilities, such as thorough research and visual graphic creation.

You can utilise a number of organic marketing tactics to build brand awareness, an audience and ultimately new customers. An essential organic component of this strategy is content marketing. Creating and posting valuable, relevant and meaningful content is a great free way to increase your brand awareness, trust and authority, leading to increased lead/sales generation.

Using a mix of the below techniques is recommended to achieve the best results:

• A consistent flow of social media content (organic)
• Monthly email newsletters
• Advice-led blog posting
• Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
• Building backlinks from high authority websites

2. Choose a Hosting and Maintenance Partner That Offers Flexibility

Choosing a provider that regularly monitors and suggests suitable plans based on usage not only protects you from inflation but gives you the flexibility to adjust your package depending on your needs. You want a contractual agreement with a price promise for 12 months minimum to protect you and your business as the cost of living rises and other expenses increase.

For example, in manufacturing, you will often find at least one period of the year where traffic is expected to ramp up significantly. This can be driven by classic product-related seasonality (e.g. sun cream in Summer) or marketing offers to inflate demand, and your website will need to be able to handle any spikes in traffic.

By partnering with an agency that regularly reviews your package and suggests ways to improve the service provided, you could look to save or reallocate funds elsewhere. This relates to hosting and any monthly or annual agreement your business may be contributing to, such as website maintenance, CRM software, etc.

3. Take Advantage of Organic Social Media and  Email Marketing

Despite social media platforms bringing in 29.37 billion pounds in revenue² – the marketing tools themselves are free, unlike many traditional marketing methods (print marketing, tv and radio advertisements etc.). Using organic social media content that can be packed with clickable links is also a cost-effective alternative to increasing website traffic and goal conversions, which can save on any extensive pay-per-click (PPC) budgets. 

Social media marketing is quick, easy and time-efficient. You can build a community of followers and gain consumer trust by providing bucket loads of resources all in one place within minutes. The platforms also allow you to humanise your brand and partner with influencers and key stakeholders. 

Key things to remember when managing social media for a business:

• Create a social media strategy based on your target audience
• Put together a content plan looking at key awareness days, products and services, User Generated Content (UGC), testimonials, FAQs, behind the scenes and more
• Schedule your posts to save time using tools like Hootsuite, Tweetdeck or Buffer
• Measure results using Google Analytics as well as internal social media analytics
• Keep an eye out for industry trends using social listening tools and Google Trends
• Create engaging social graphics using Canva or if your budget allows, reach out to a graphic designer for some creative direction

4. Strengthen Relationships with Suppliers and Customers with Case Studies and Connecting on Social Media

By building a bank of case studies and sharing this insight across social media (tagging relevant stakeholders), you can reduce the cost of marketing efforts as it is a free and organic way to build trust and brand awareness with your audience. 

It not only makes your customers feel appreciated and special, but it also allows your brand to reach businesses it may not otherwise have. By engaging with your customers and suppliers on social media, you are building credibility with potential new customers that are not following your content yet; essentially, you can reach a wider audience at no expense. 

When writing case studies, link back to customer and supplier websites and focus on target search terms. This will support the improvement of website authority and visibility online, and Google keyword positioning will improve, increasing website traffic. To do this, use tools such as Google Search Console, Google Analytics, Moz and Google Trends to carry out your keyword research and ensure you are targeting the most relevant keywords or phrases.

5. Increase Digital Reach and Rank Higher in Organic Search Results with Traditional SEO

Traditional SEO practices are one of the top ways to increase keyword rankings and reach while simultaneously trying to maximise the marketing budget. Spending money on PPC advertising and Google Ads can quickly become expensive, especially in competitive industries. Building a solid organic search presence with relevant content and strong website optimisation can be a great way to still appear at the top of the first page of Google. 

Users often ask Google very specific questions – and if your website gives them direct answers to those questions, the search algorithm will reward that. Support that with in-depth on-page optimisation, perfecting your meta descriptions and alt tags, and you could find yourself with a featured snippet (highlighted excerpts of text that appear at the top of a Google search results page in what is known as ‘Position 0’) or top position. 

Whether you use an agency to help with your SEO or invest in an internal resource to manage search presence, this strategy, in the long run, works out much cheaper than a search ads campaign that you have to fuel with money every single month. 

Limited Budget Digital Marketing Case Study – Tubex

Tubex approached Fishtank Agency to spread awareness of the Tubex Collection and Recycling Programme, position Tubex as a sustainable leader within the forestry industry and support customers facing the demand for sustainability initiatives within the forestry industry by educating them about the benefits of Tubex tree shelters. 

As the budget for this campaign was limited, Fishtank Agency maximised the budget and stretched it across multiple channels in order to achieve the campaign objectives set out by the company. The strategic agency developed an integrated marketing strategy including targeted email campaigns, digital marketing, social media content creation and search engine optimisation.

The campaign resulted in 150,000 Tubex tree shelters being collected since the launch with more than 25,000 kg of plastic collected and recycled. As well as increases in website traffic, Tubex also saw social media traffic grow by 15% and average session duration on the website jump by 10%.

Jacy Yates, Account Manager at Fishtank Agency, summarised: “Digital marketing helps businesses of all sizes become more visible online. Whether it’s through social media, a website, or other means, digital marketing tactics can make a significant difference to a business’s marketability and profitability. “The above tips on how you can save costs as a business online show the cost benefits of digital marketing; the key to using them is to have the right talent in-house or to find a compatible business partner in a digital agency you can trust”.

The post Five Ways to Save Costs as a Business Online appeared first on SiteProNews.

Following these changes to consumer behaviour and a 323% increase in monthly searches for ‘How does SEO work’, digital marketing specialist, Fishtank Agency, share a straightforward guide to optimising a business’ online presence using Search Engine Optimisation (SEO).

From keyword research to targeted link building, find out how to create a top-ranking website with SEO:

1. Choose Relevant Topics and Keywords

Keywords are a vital part of SEO and are used by search engines to understand what a website or page is about and whether it’s relevant to what a user is searching. 

Ola Tambor, Head of Digital at Fishtank Agency, explains: “You want to drive as much traffic as possible to your website, but you also need to make sure that visitors are going to be interested in your business and not leave your site immediately. A simple way to attract your target audience is to find relevant keywords they are searching for. An excellent way to do this is to research what competitors and other successful companies in your sector are ranking for and consider if they can apply to your business.

“Remember, put yourself in your target audience’s shoes and think how a customer would search to find you and what services or products they would be looking for. Keep in mind any alternative terms for products or common questions people could be searching for.”

2. Set Up On-site Optimisation

On-site SEO optimisation tells Google and other search engines what your website page is about and whether it provides value to what a user may be searching for. This optimisation not only affects the appearance and usability of the site to users but also helps the website appear better to search engine bots.

Ola adds: “On-page SEO elements can include page content, titles, headers, meta descriptions, image alt-text page URLs and more. These elements are referred to as ‘on-page’ as they are visible to visitors on the site whereas ‘off-page’ SEO elements aren’t always visible and may occur on the back of the website.

“To optimise your website, you need to make sure that page content is of a high quality by referencing high ranking keywords and search terms, as well as, relevant topics that users will likely be searching for. Having researched keywords and monitoring what content your competitors rank highest for, review all titles and headings to make sure they feature different keywords so that users and bots can find relevant information quickly. This also applies elements not visible to visitors, including meta titles, URLs and meta descriptions.”

3. Set Up a Blog and a Consistent Blogging Schedule

Having a growing collection of regular and high-quality blog content will help showcase your knowledge and reliability as a business and help build trust and authority between you and Google. Optimised blog content can improve keyword rankings by utilising key search terms and answering relevant questions people will be searching for.

Ola says: “Having a consistent blog schedule sends positive signals to Google and other search engines that your website is sharing fresh and up to date information. It can also increase the time visitors spend on your website and provide opportunities for internal links to products and services and external links from other websites that find your advice of use.”

4. Create a Link-building Plan

Building links to your website is a key digital marketing method to attract new visitors and broaden your audience. Securing external links, especially from high ranking sites, will support your search engine ranking position (SERP) for target keywords and improve trust and authority with search engines.

Ola advises: “Take time regularly to brainstorm wishlist websites you’d like to receive a backlink from. Base this on the website’s domain authority, the industry in which it targets, and the potential reach of audiences. You can achieve external links by sharing press releases with journalists and bloggers, monitoring broken links, partnership and sponsorship opportunities, featuring in trusted directories, offering discounts and more.”

5. Measure and Track Your Content’s Success

An SEO strategy combines several different elements and tactics to make positive changes, which is why it’s important to effectively measure and track your content’s success to see which changes have benefitted your business and which areas need further improvement.

Ola explains: “An SEO report should provide an overview of the changes to a website from a set period and can be done on a quarterly, monthly or weekly basis depending on changes.

“Within these reports, you should cover metrics such as traffic, keyword rankings, website health and changes in user behaviour. Tools such as Google Analytics and SEMRush can be used to monitor sources of traffic to your website and track changes in visitor behaviour, goal conversions or keyword rankings.”

Ola summarises: “The past two years have been incredibly difficult for businesses in all sectors, with many losing a huge portion of their customers almost immediately when lockdown began. Whilst operating your business online may seem like a straightforward strategy, digital marketing is vital to support changes in customers’ needs and behaviour when shopping.

“Researching and monitoring your customer’s experience will allow you to improve usability, create a better functioning website and provide an improved user journey for your customers, which will lead to more interest and conversions.” 

Find out more about optimising your website for search engines and improving keyword rankings: https://fishtankagency.com/blog/what-is-seo-a-beginners-guide/.

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