Category Archives: Search Engine Optimisation

6 Reasons Why You Should Make Video Marketing a Priority

In the age of social media and content sharing, we explore why video marketing should be at the top of your to-do list 

In the days of dial-up, you wouldn’t dream of trying to load up a 10 second video of a cat playing a piano, let alone a 2 minute long video just to watch the ethos of somebody’s business. Nowadays, we scroll through our social media feeds at lightening speed, watching video after video just to fill our tube, train or bus journey. This is not a mere phase of technology boom; instant video sharing is here to stay. As we saw from the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge in 2014, the power of viral video can be global and really spread the word about your business or cause.

 

1. Utilise Your Resources

 

It is no secret that ‘YouTubers’ earn a shed load of money for uploading 5-minute videos of putting on make-up, playing video games, or simply showing off their daily life. These unlikely stars have had a helping hand in making video content a key way for people to access information quickly. A lot of these young entrepreneurs found a rising gap in the market and latched on to it by creating interesting content for their viewers by tailoring content into bite size, well-produced chunks that keep people engaged. However, we are not here to talk about these curators of content, this was just the catalyst of things to come. Now, we have so many video sharing apps and websites that there is simply no excuse not to utilise them. YouTube is just one outlet to market and keep your consumers interested, whatever your business may be. Apps such as Vine, Instagram and Snapchat – where the users can create videos only seconds long – pushed for social media users to focus on short, punchy and engaging videos. Facebook shortly followed in these footsteps, offering a heavily weighted timeline of videos with many of those being sponsored explainer and corporate videos. If you came here wanting just one good enough reason to utilise video marketing and content sharing for your business, this would be it.

 

2. Sharing is Caring

 

When someone finds something funny, engaging or emotional, you can bet your bottom dollar that they will want to share that with their friends, family or colleagues. Whether this is an interesting article, a picture of puppy or an incredible business idea that they can’t wait to explore, people want to show this to others to create a reaction. This is exactly what you want the viewers of your content to be thinking. A good way to challenge this theory before you put your content out to the masses is to show it to one of your friends, family or co-workers and ask them honestly if they would share this after watching it.

 

3. Brand Recognition

 

You want the style of your video to reflect the brand that you are. Putting together a video with dark colours and clean lines may not be appropriate for a children’s clothing company, however, it may be really engaging for the customers of a technology company. Getting the potential consumers to instantly recognise your brand seconds into your videos will allow people to remember your business and be more likely to return to it in the future.

 

4. SEO

Not only does brand recognition help drive traffic to your website, but it also increases your SEO. It helps to push you to the top of the search engines and is likely to increase the click rate from video to webpage. Including relevant tags and web links to your content will help to also improve this.

 

5. Suitable for all devices

Making sure that any of your video marketing is, including (and probably most importantly) your explainer video, is suitable for all devices is a very key detail. Is your video suitable for all types of smart phones, such as iOS and Android? Can you watch this in high definition on a laptop or desktop as well as a phone or tablet? Is the content suitable to watch on a smaller screen, such as a phone, as well as a large screen, such as a desktop computer? These are all details that need to be thought about from the very early stages of creation right to finalizing the finished production.

 

6. Content, content, content!

Finally, it would be silly to not mention content. Of course all of the resources and tips above will help you to tailor your use for video marketing, but your video will not make an impact if it is uninteresting, inappropriate for your business or produced poorly. You may have great ideas for your next marketing video, but creating and executing that content is crucial. Is it engaging? Is it relevant? Does it make you want to re-watch and share? Conduct your own research and look at other businesses similar to your own. Have they utilised video marketing? If so, how long are the videos? How are they designed? What social media have they used to place their video marketing? Have their consumers taken interest and ‘liked’ or shared their video? These types of questions will help you to understand how to curate your own content and how best to exploit it.

 

Ranging from explainer videos to promotional videos and corporate videos to animation, we can help guide you in your journey to creating and producing great content. Contact our team of experts today and get your video marketing on a roll!

How to keep your web content fresh for 2017

The Year of the Rooster

Happy New Year to you all! It is now the turn of the Chinese New Year; the year of the Rooster. The Rooster symbolises time keeping, organisation and reliability amongst many of its qualities. With a little inspiration drawn from chaos that was 2016 (year of the Monkey – allegedly erratic and unpredictable) we thought we would smoothly draw a line under it all and start afresh. And what perfect way to begin a new chapter than to be inspired by rooster qualities? We delve into some ideas on how to keep your web content both fresh and innovative, whilst allowing you to provide your customers with efficient and reliable services.

 

Think… Clean Layout

This may seem like an obvious one, but not everyone gets this right first time. There is nothing worse than going on to a website, whether it was just a simple search into a search engine or you’ve gone straight to the site you desire and not being able to navigate it. Particularly with the fast paced and instant world we live in today, people get bored. Consumers are less likely to continue to search through your website if it feels awkward and difficult. Your site also represents your business so you want people to think that by choosing to work with you that it will be a smooth and effortless transition. It is vital that you keep website looking clean with smooth lines and simple drop down menus that allow people to get to their destination with ease.

 

Keep Updated

Without content, your website is just a few drop down menus that lead to empty pages with headings. Obviously, your website is not going to just lead into nowhere, so why would you only update or add new content to your site just once, or even twice? The rule above applies to many aspects of your business, not just the layout or design: don’t let people become bored of your site when all you need to do is keep it updated regularly. You can do this by adding new content, such as interesting blog posts, comments from customers or even keeping a dashboard to your business’ social media page so that customers, new or existing, can see what you’re up to regularly. Not to mention, keeping your content fresh will help keep your website relevant and boost your SEO.

 

Make Sure to do your FAQ’s

Many companies, especially smaller ones, may not see the need for an FAQ page. This page is such a vital, yet fairly easy page to create. You may not be able to always reply to potential customers questions so it is important that any questions they may have are easy to reach. This may be a question about shipping and delivery, or warranties or how to reach a certain member of your team. It helps potentially frustrated customers feel accounted for and inadvertently looked after.

 

50 Shades of Grey (or blue, or purple or green)

Now this may not work for everyone, however, a sometimes effective way to freshen up your website if you are wanting a full overhaul or whether you are thinking about your first site. Colour schemes help to set the tone of your site and give it a clean-cut finish. Unless you already have a colour scheme or design layout set in stone, a really simple and effective way to look more professional is to pick one colour, maybe that of your company logo, and using variations of that colour throughout your site. However, if you do use this technique, make sure that your using one shade of that colour and altering it from light to dark so not to clash and cause your customers to have sore eyes after looking at your site.

 

Stay Balanced

Keeping the balance between professionalism but making sure to be friendly and talk to your customers on a friendly level is important when doing business and you should keep this in mind when going through your website. Look through your site; does it look informative but not condescending? Does it read well and easy to understand? Making sure to keep the levels of jargon down (unless your business requires it) will help people not to feel alienated when understanding what they will get from you and your business.

 

Add Some Pizazz

Finally, although you want your website to be clean, easy to navigate and free of jargon, you also want it to have the type of flair that represents you and your business. This can be something as simple adding images or embedded videos to certain pages to add a bit of visual excitement. Even adding a link to a page that directs you to a ‘Meet the Team’ page with a picture of each member of staff and a fact about each one could be an icebreaker for your customers. Think of something that sets you and/or your team/business apart from everyone else within your field of competition and add it in! People love to feel like they’re unique, so if they’re using a company that has a quirk about them it will be more likely that they will remember you and attract them to your business.

 

We hope that your business prospers through 2017! If you would like any information or advice on keeping your website fresh or any of our other services, please contact our team today.

Simple Tips on How to Drive Traffic to Your New Website

Whether it’s the interview of your dreams or the date of your dreams, here at Stormnet Media,  we believe that first impressions are crucial. We cannot stress enough how important it is to have that first step polished. Whether it is your new website or you are launching a new app, it is important to make sure that it is not only ready to impress your consumers, but it is finished and launched with a cherry on top. It is that extra ‘je ne sais quoi’ that takes a mediocre pop record to a legendary hit, so with that in mind, we have put together some simple tips that will take your website from ‘one-hit-wonder’ to ‘hall-of-fame’ chart topper!

Content, content, content!

No article on our website would be complete without discussing our favourite topic, and that is… Content! We love content. However, it is no good just thinking about the initial launch and beginning processes. Even if you have the most incredible content to launch with your new site and you have your target audience hooked, it would not maintain its credibility if it was not nurtured and developed. This means making sure that you have enough ideas for new content as possible, in order to keep your consumers updated as consistently as possible. If you upload new videos, blogs or images to your website every Wednesday, stay committed. It is important that your audience sees you are passionate about growing your business by keeping them informed, and will make customers more likely to want to come back to your site or app in order to check out the new content.

Research

Before you can upload the wonderful content that you have waiting and ready to go, make sure that you have thoroughly done your research. Searching the latest trends on social media, website forums relating to your business or similar topics and keeping track of changes within your business world with email alerts will help to consistently develop your business. Keeping up to date with the latest news and social goings on surrounding the business that you are trying to launch will open your eyes to both the competition and help you to judge better on predicting what might be the next step forward for your business. It depends what type of new business you are launching, but sometimes it is even worth asking, what the savvy social world call ‘social influencers’. These are the people on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram that are known for having the most followers, simply for tapping into niche markets and turning them into trends. In the creative industries, such as fashion and music, it can be a massive leap in popularity and drive for your website if associated with these online forces.

Bold, Bright and Social

In world where now communicate through text, video and imagery, whether it is for business or pleasure, you would be correct in thinking that it is an important part of the western culture. No matter what business you are, it would be silly not to keep your website or app updated with new images and videos to catch the consumers interest. Keeping the multimedia content on your site user friendly is super important; it is simple things such as keeping the images on your website ‘pinterest-friendly’ to encourage your potential customers to do a little bit of advertising for you by ‘re-pinning’ your most recent images. It may not have to be an image either, if your company is a lot more keen on spreading a message, then attaching ‘memes’ to your site with ideas such as inspirational quotes or interesting info graph’s that link back to your website, will drive in more and more people. However, be sure to keep video content short and sweet. With the culture of social media, it is that instant gratification that people are now used too, videos on Instagram and Vine are often between 6-15 seconds long! Yet, it is these short videos that seem to go viral on the web within minutes of them being posted online.

Stay Interactive

As we have mentioned earlier on in this article, keeping your content updated is important, in order to show customers that you are developing as a business in order to tailor to their needs. This is also true with looking at, discussing and changing with feedback. There is nothing worse than feeling as though a business you have recently bought into has, not only not lived up to the customer’s expectations, but then also, not taking on their feedback positively or even at all. As long as it is appropriate for the style of business that you are creating and ensuring that you have the man power for it, it may be worth taking advantage of all the fantastic platforms within your reach in order to get in touch with your customers. People like to know that their voice is being heard, so being able to assist people and further their experience with your company, it may lead to free advertising in the form of ‘Word of Mouth’ from your most loyal customers.

SEO

Many people shy away from the, often mammoth, task of making sure that you have effective and working links to and from your website. Your site should be SEO friendly in order to optimize the amount of traffic that you could potentially be driving to your site, should you be doing it correctly. As long as you have both on-line and off-line link backs to your website with titles that incorporate the most popular search terms relating to your site, then the more people you will be attracting and help you to climb the rankings on search engines such as Google. Be careful with your link backs and ensure that the sites that are linking your audience to you website are reputable and trusted sites, because as we said, first impressions count, therefore, people won’t want to click on your site if you are linked to a dodgy or untrusted site. Simple things such as using relevant terms and phrases attached to the images on your site; using key words in the titles and headers on your page or simply creating shareable content that is of high quality using key words and interesting headings will ensure the click-count becomes higher.

There are many more things that we would love to advise you on, so if you would like more information on how to maximize the potential of your website or app then please don’t hesitate to contact us!

 

How To Really Rock Your Website Landing Page

anatomy-perfect-landing-page

The website landing page. Its one aim in life is to attract new visitors and to convert them quickly into lovely paying customers. Now, we’ve seen some stunning landing pages in our time and also some truly terrible ones!  It’s the good ones we’re going to be focusing on and how to make your landing page irresistible to your visitors.

If You Build It, They WIll Come

The first mistake many people make with their landing page or home page is to assume that just because it is there people will find it, and if they do find it they will like what they see and become a customer. Unfortunately, there is more to a website landing page than simply making it happen.  You need to hire an SEO expert to drive people to your site from the search engines, you need a great landing page layout to make your sales message clear and you need a hook that your competitors don’t have.

One Chance Of Hitting The Big Time

Your website landing page may be the first impression potential customers have of your company so make that impression count. Make sure the content on your page reflects the keywords you are targeting with the search engines – we can help you with this!  If your page is not relevant to those viewing it, they will simply flit off in seconds to find a page that is.  Don’t give your competitors the upper hand. Grab the attention of your target audience and keep them engaged.

Here’s how:

Make your page visually striking and easy to navigate.

Keep your content brief and to the point. Make it clear what you want your audience to do. This might to to take up your free trial, buy a product or service or sign up to your newsletter. Have clear direction and avoid going into too much detail.

Consider video marketing. A website landing page is the perfect candidate for slick video production. Make things easy for your audience. A 60 second video can convert more visitors instantly than you thought possible and we can show you a few statistics to back up that statement.  Take a look at our extensive video production portfolio to see some of our videos in action.

Let Stormnet Media Take Care Of Business

Defining a killer landing page can be a daunting and confusing process so why not let us take the reins? We have over 25 years of experience when it comes to website and video marketing and would be delighted to learn more about your business, your goals and sales targets and your target audience.

If you are trading online, your website landing page and website are your most valuable commodities. Make them work for you by using striking graphics and video, a compelling sales message and a strong call to action.  We can explain these essential components in more detail ad help you to turn that trickle of visitors into a flood!

Speak to the Stormnet Media team now on 01527 910050 or use our contact form to get in touch.

 

 

 

 

 

 

How to optimise your YouTube videos

5 Tips to optimise your web video on YouTube

YouTube is now the world’s second biggest search engine. This means that you can use video to help drive traffic to your website. However, many people are ‘missing a trick’ in as much as they don’t optimise their web video properly. This can mean that they miss out on valuable traffic.

OK, so how to you optimise your YouTube web video?

Optimising your web video is easier than you think. There are just a few simple steps that will help to make sure that your video is a hit.

1. Use the word ‘Video’ in your title

This sounds like an obvious one but so many people don’t do it! When people are searching for videos they tend to put the word ‘video’ in their search term. For example, instead of ‘car maintenance’ people search for ‘car maintenance video’ – so use the word video as part of your title.

 2. Put a link to your website in the description

The description you use for your video should be keyword rich and relevant to the video subject. Use a snappy description and a call to action so the viewer knows what to do next. Include a link to your website at the start of the description so that viewers have somewhere to get more info.

3. Tag your video with relevant keywords

The tags are an important part of the optimisation process, so make sure that you use relevant tags. Try to think of words that people will search for. We suggest using something like the Google keyword checker tool to see what people are actually searching for. Sometimes it’s best to go for less competitive longer keyword phrases.

4. Make your video inclusive and accessible

Using sub titles is a great way to ensure that people who have a hearing impairment can understand the content. You can get your video production company to create the video with sub titles or you can use some free software such as YouTube’s captioning system.

5. Choose a compelling thumbnail

We’ve all been in a bookstore and chosen a book based on the picture on the cover. It’s the same with online video – people will choose to play your video if the thumbnail image is compelling or interesting. So choose the thumbnail image wisely – it can make a huge difference to the amount of plays you get.

Here at Stormnet Media we use a number of different ways to distribute video content. YouTube is a important part of any video SEO strategy and a well optimised video will drive traffic and boost sales.

If you’d like help with any aspect of video production or video SEO then we’d love to help you. Give us a call on 01527 910050 and let us show you how.

 

Guide to Keeping Your Viewers Engaged for Longer with Online Video

Online video and how to keep your viewers engaged for longer

Online video marketing provides businesses with a powerful new way of bringing their product to new audiences. When you put your video online, however, you’re putting yourself in competition with many other demands on your viewers’ attention. As a result, the conventional wisdom about video production is that you need to keep your video nice and short. The most commonly quoted ideal length is a minute or less.

The numbers definitely back up this idea; studies have shown that viewers are far less likely to turn off a 30-second video than they are to turn off a video between one and two minutes in length. The lesson seems simple: keep your video short.

This is all very well, but what if the subject you need to cover in your video takes longer than one minute to explain? After all, a minute isn’t very long, and complex subjects necessarily have complex explanations. A sixty-second explanation of a two-minute subject isn’t going to turn viewers into customers; it’s going to leave them confused and dissatisfied. In video production as in everything else, content is king — and as a result, you’re occasionally going to have to create a longer video.

So how do you keep the attention of fickle viewers throughout a longer video? Nothing is certain, but there are a few tips you can use to encourage your potential customers to stick around for the conclusion.

First and most importantly, don’t make your video any longer than it needs to be. Viewers are willing to be patient if they see that a long video is long because it contains lots of important information. They won’t wait for a video that seems long because the script isn’t tightly constructed or because unnecessary details are being included.

Creating an element of suspense is another important factor in keeping the attention of viewers. Begin your video with a question that you intend to answer, enticing the audience to follow along with you as you explain the process.

Beginning with a question or promise doesn’t mean that you should conceal the point of your presentation. In journalism, leaving critical information out of the introduction to a story is known as “burying the lede”. In video production, it’s just as serious a mistake. Unless viewers understand the content and importance of what they’re about to see, they won’t stick around for the finale.

If you’d like an online video production with a great story that will keep your viewers engaged and will persuade them to buy then contact us. We are your friendly experts in video production – call us on 01527 910050

Online Video Marketing Essentials

What you need to know about online video marketing

As more and more homes acquire broadband internet connections, online video marketing becomes more and more desirable. Potential customers who might once not have waited to download a video can now access it in seconds. With this in mind, it’s worth looking at what video marketing can do for you and your business.

As a marketing tool, video provides great opportunities to show your product or service in action. Customers can learn how to use your product. Above all, you can sell not only your company but yourself directly to potential customers. Viewers are much more likely to share videos than they are to pass on text articles or blog posts, making videos a great way to get your message in front of as many potential customers as possible.

Short is beautiful

Marketing video production can be as elaborate as you want to make it, but a memorable online video can be created relatively simply as long as you remember a few fundamentals. The first and most important component of a marketing video is the script. You need to keep your presentation short and focused on your key point. If you have a lot of information to convey, it may be better to present multiple short videos rather than a single long one.

While creating your script, think about how your narration is going to complement the images your viewers will be seeing in the video. If you have a software or web-based product to sell, you may want to use screenshare to create your video, capturing the image on your computer monitor for your viewers to see. Alternatively, computer animation or slides can help convey information simply. Live video is the perfect way to demonstrate physical processes such as product assembly, but live video production needs additional factors such as proper lighting.

Don’t scrimp on the sound

Narration offers a perfect opportunity to sell your product in your own voice, but you may also decide to use a professional voice actor for the role. In either case, proper microphone and recording equipment are vital to ensure that your narration describes your product clearly and holds the attention of potential customers.

Whether you’re using a professional video production firm or going the DIY route, choosing the right elements for your online video can add a powerful tool to your marketing efforts.

If you’d like to boost your sales and web traffic with an online video then we’d love to speak to you. Call your friendly experts today on 01527 910050.

How to optimise your website video for search rankings

4 Ways to get your website video to the top of the search rankings – FREE guide

OK, so you’ve got some awesome website videos and now you want to drive loads of lovely traffic to your website. You know that videos are indexed well by Google but how do you actually go about getting your video in the rankings.

Here’s our quick guide to how to do it.

1. Use YouTube

It sounds obvious but it’s amazing how many people forget to use this free platform. Basically Google gets information from thousands of different places on the Internet. These are compiled into the results that you see when you do a search. The great news is that YouTube and Google seem (albeit denied) to have a special relationship with each other in terms of favouritism. This means that videos on YouTube are 85% more likely to show up in the rankings than other platforms.

So definitely use YouTube but also don’t exclude the other channels such as Vimeo and Google Video.

2. Optimise your video

Again, this seems obvious but many people simply upload their videos but don’t bother optimising them. It’s vital that you optimise your video titles, description and tags. And you don’t forget to optimise the actual title and file name as YouTube look at all these factors. It’s always a good idea to do some keyword research so that you use tags that are relevant and not too competitive. Long tail keywords work well, especially ones that are geographically based (such as a town / county).

3. Video sitemap

If you have a video hosted on your own website then you’ll need to create a video sitemap. While videos are indexed by the search engines on the platforms such as YouTube automatically they’re not on a ‘normal’ website. This means you’ll need to create and upload a site map with meta data about the video title, content and running time.

4. Compelling thumbnails

When you upload your website videos make sure that you pick a thumbnail that’s going to make the viewer hit the play button. Think about what will draw the user to the video and select the thumbnail accordingly.

If you’re considering website video production then talk to us first. We help loads of businesses like you achieve huge online success and improved conversion rates with stunning explainer videos and website videos. We back this up with making sure all the techie stuff (as above) is done to ensure maximum exposure.

Give you friendly video production company a call today on 01527 910050.