The content of your website is a key element that should never be neglected.
Be aware that the contents of all your communication (texts & images) reflect the image of your company. But for your online communication they take even a vital role for your SEO.
Here are 3 golden rules you should respect:
 

Rule # 1: Engage Recipients

• Who are your recipients?
• What subjects interest them?
• How to talk to them?
• Which style to adopt?
These are the questions you should asked in order to optimize your web content. Actually, you only have a few seconds to catch the attention of potential customers who have landed on your site. Therefore you have to captivate them and offer them content that might interest them.
It goes without saying that we will not speak in the same way to a car dealer as to a 15 year old teenager.
 
 

Rule # 2: Present quality content

Be aware that your site and / or Blog is only one of millions. To evoke the interest of potential customers, you must distinguish yourself from others. Present an ergonomic, well structured, clear, concise content of high quality -  it is the image of your company which is at stake.
Also, choose relevant keywords, so that your site has a good SEO on the search engines. Remember, you have to find keywords that the potential customer will search intuitively and not the one you use in your technical terms.
And last but not least, take care of  your content's form. There are many sites where you can find typing, spelling, grammar or HTML code errors!
 
 

Rule # 3: Care about your  Layout

Avoid large blocks of 50 lines or more, your texts must be aired to guide the eye of your reader ; put titles and subtitles, create paragraphs and columns, embed images or put some keywords in bold.
Finally, vary your content! More visually appealing, the image captures the eye and leads attention to your content.
As you can see, textual and visual content is important and should not be neglected!

Let it take off by making it a powerful tool!

Do you belong to those people who are constantly annoyed that their website does not bring them a bunch of new customers. Since you've spent your sacred leisure time creating a website, but the number of people who perceives your company has hardly changed? - You may have even spent a lot of money on a web agency and still the results are far behind your expectations? 

The visibility of a company on the Internet becomes more and more a key issue and is not least the main aspect of   success or failure of your company.

A few years ago it may have been sufficient to have a website, but due to the rapid growth of the Internet and the fact that more and more customers are doing their shopping on the Internet or choose their service providers with their smart phones, the situation has changed fundamentally.

So, if you're one of those entrepreneurs whose website is unlikely to make a big difference to your business's success, be sure to check that your website meets the current requirements. - A website can be a very powerful tool, but as with all tools, a website can only do a good job if it meets the expectations that are placed on it.
You cannot build a house with just one hammer.

In addition, you should be aware that creating a website is just the first step on the road to success. A website is useless if you do not use that tool (and it is nothing more than a tool) and just pay for its hosting once a year.

Your  house would never be finished either , even if you'd  bought all the tools you've  needed, but leave them in the garage.
The base is the website, but a website alone does not create customer contact.

So, what can you do?

The magic word is: 'Referencing'!
Surely you have read or heard something about SEO before, maybe you've also got a lot of hot tips, like registering you   website in as many directories as possible, linking it  to pages of other providers and, of course, be present on social networks.
Certainly, some of these tips may or may have been legitimate (at least in part), but applied incorrectly these "valuable" tips may turn out to negatively affect your goals.

In addition, you  should know that the techniques for better visibility on the internet are subject to constant change. Thus, it is quite possible that an effective measure of yesterday, can be an obstacle today. - So you have to stay tuned and have your website undergo regular checks and adjustments to make sure it meets the latest requirements.

But what does that mean in concrete terms?

Since the visibility on the internet can be equated with the indexing in Google's search engine - 90% of all users rely on the Google search results (some users even believe that GOOGLE is the Internet), we are  actually talking about adapting a website to Google's requirements.

The so-called referencing pyramid can be helpful to achieve that objective:

But beware, some of the techniques in the pyramid that are quite legitimate today may be outdated tomorrow, so be sure to stay up to date and incorporate all the changes Google has made to the referencing process when working on your website's referencing.

Did you know, for example, that Google has fundamentally changed its natural referencing algorithm on August 1, 2018?

This update, first for health, finance and security websites, named: "Medic Update" is gradually extending its special requirements to all other web page types. This new algorithm puts (as well as the PANDA Algorithm) the main focus on the content of web pages. -

Until these updates, the challenge was to place as many keywords as possible within the first 200 characters of the text content, but from now on ( finally I would say) it's all about  quality. - The 200-character restriction is no longer valid, as Google is now evaluating up to 800 characters per text. - But before you start to hit the keys and overload your website with text, be aware that it's not about creating 800 characters of text. - It's about creating quality content.

But what is quality content?

Of course, like everyone else, you have an idea of ​​what quality is and what's not, but this is not about creating award-winning literature. It's about creating content that meets the following 2 criteria:

1) The content should be properly integrated into the web page.

Respect the HTML hierarchies and assign appropriate tags to the elements of your content. Pay particular attention to the tags according to their purpose! For example, Alt tags are not a referencing tool (such as the MetaTags) - Alt Tags are designed to help visually impaired users to access contents of a web page by using a screen reader. - An image description should therefore be introduced into an Alt tag if these descriptions are important for the understanding of the content. Alt tags of pictures that are included in the page for purely visual / decorative reasons get an empty Alt tag.

2) The content should be unique and relevant !

So stay away from the good old copy / paste. After the latest judgments and legislative proposals of the EU this can even get you in big trouble (see: "upload filter") - but that's a topic for another blog entry...

Sure, there are websites that have testified to what you are trying to say, and maybe even in a way that you could hardly express. - Still, try it! - Say what you have to say, as you would say it. Be authentic ! - Formulate sentences that are as short as possible and easy to understand, avoid lengthy debauchery. - Put yourself in the place of your reader and be aware that, unlike you, he has no expertise. But do not be tempted to train your reader in your area of ​​expertise (unless of course your website has this in mind).

Keep text passages as short as possible. Illustrate your content with meaningful graphics and photography (remember: "a picture is worth a thousand words").
But respect, also and especially with the use of images: "Be unique!"

Not only that the unsolicited use of images from the internet is often illegal, even punishable, it is also punished by Google. Therefore, it is better to use images that you have created yourself, or images that you have had created by a professional, or images in which you have acquired the rights of use.

To be continued ...

If you do not want to wait, if you need an assessment of your website or help with the implementation of the individual SEO measures, then do not hesitate to contact us!

Fashion or decisive strategy?

Whether in social networks, communications agencies or in the media, everywhere  we hear and read about the new miracle weapon of Inbound Marketing .

However, the concept of inbound marketing is not as up-to-date as it seems. Over the past five to ten years, some American brand blogs and companies have already discovered this marketing strategy. Nevertheless, the awareness that inbound marketing is an essential tool is more recent in Europe. With the Internet and new consumer habits, this approach opens up completely new possibilities.

But what is "inbound marketing"?

The practice of inbound marketing or incoming marketing is easy to understand. It is a special form of marketing that tries to make the customer come to you, instead of looking for him, as it was  in traditional approaches. This concept is therefore close to permission marketing, which is about obtaining the consent of the customer before requesting it.

To achieve this goal, each brand / company must become its own media which converts  its audience to customers.

In practice there are 4 important steps:

The 4 steps of the inbound marketing strategy:

This methodology is cyclic, the phases repeat themselves and follow each other.        

Step 1: Raise traffic of  your website and / or blog through social networks and search engines;

Step 2: Transform visitors into potential customers by offering content via forms or for download;

Step 3: Engage and maintain the relationship with your 'audience' to accompany the Leads in their purchasing decisions and convert them to customers.

Step 4: Build the customer loyalty and make your customers the ambassador of your offer.

The principle of inbound marketing is therefore to attract prospective customers through intelligent and relevant content instead of feeding them with advertising. As a result, each company or brand has to become its own media to attract its target group.

However, a company will not become such a media overnight!

In order to achieve this, it should initially increase its visibility and try to become indispensable to its customers. By the time, the right resources and the right methods, it can then advance to become its own media.

The strategy of inbound marketing is particularly suitable for B2B companies or for the sale of complex products, for a simple reason: it reduces the acquisition costs and shortens sales cycles.

The fact that this strategy attracts more and more companies and marketers is due to the fact that it has proven itself: According to a comprehensive study by Hubspot ("State Of Inbound"), which was developed in collaboration with the renowned Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) the leads generated by inbound marketing are 61% cheaper than the revenue generated in outbound marketing, while inbound marketing  generates   54% more leads in average. It is therefore no coincidence that 3 out of 4 brand players in the world prefer an inbound approach.
  
We also note that the average cost of generating a 'lead' for inbound marketing is between 25 and 70 Euros, while outbound marketing is significantly higher (up to 250 Euros).