The SEO department here at Creare is made up of a variety of people working in a range of different roles. Each team is a vital cog in the well-oiled machine of SEO, but what part does the Content Team play in Creare’s SEO success? Read on to learn a few of our secrets as we reveal the inner workings of Article Marketing.

Who Are We?

From the Content Team, to Article Marketing, to “those guys in the corner”, we go by many names. But who are the Content Team? Our current team members have a mixture of English-based degrees – from Film and Television Screenwriting, to Journalism and Creative Writing – but one thing that we do share (besides our love of cake and Rugby FM) is a passion for writing.

We may have all started out with a burning ambition to become the next big thing in the world of literature or journalism, but through a variety of different routes we have all found ourselves here at Creare writing high-quality content for SEO. Our work allows us to stretch our writing muscles and get creative, whilst working with a group of fellow writers means that it is easy to gain some inspiration when writer’s block strikes.

What Do We Do?

So what can a group of frustrated novelists, poets and journalists bring to SEO? Using our writing skills we can help to create search engine-friendly content which includes those all-important keywords. It can be a tricky balancing act to write an article which incorporates the correct search terms in a natural, readable way, and it is often difficult to write interesting content which also works for SEO, but these challenges are what keep us on our toes.

Guest Blogging

As well as writing regular articles for a wide range of clients, we also turn our hand to Guest Blogging. Guest Blogging is a great way to reach new audiences with our content and generate more traffic to a website.

From industry-specific blogs for our clients, to SEO-based posts which we use to spread the word about Creare, Guest Blogging is an important and ever-growing aspect of what we do here in the Content Team.

Social Media

If you ever visit us here in the Content Team and spot us on Facebook or Twitter, then don’t think that we’re slacking. Social media is a big part of SEO, and an increasingly big focus for the Article Marketing department. Gayle is our resident expert in all things social, and it is her job to maintain the social media accounts of our clients. By posting regular updates, we can ensure that followers always have fresh content to enjoy, which in turn encourages more people to network with our clients.

We also Tweet every article we distribute via our very own Creare Content account (@CreareContent). As social signals become ever more important, this can help to give a client’s SEO a boost and drive traffic to their website: pretty impressive for 140 characters.

A Team of Many Talents

As well as all of the above, there are a few other strings to the Content Team bow. From writing some fresh site text to give an SEO campaign an added boost, to creating Press Releases to spread the word about a new development for one of our clients or Creare, if it involves writing, the Content Team have it covered.

Our next project will see us take on the responsibility of editing the Creare Communicator; our quarterly company newsletter. This is another great opportunity for us to get creative and share our words of wisdom with the whole company. This new venture, along with many other developments, means that this is an exciting time to be part of the Article Marketing department.

If you like the sound of what we get up to here in the Creare Content Team, then why not get in touch? As an ever-expanding department, we always have room for new writing talent. Read Holly’s post to learn more about what we are looking for, and if you think you’d like to join us here in Content Corner, email your CV to jenny@creare.co.uk.

It can be a case of mixed feelings when you hear the news that one of your competitors have closed down. On one hand you fear the worst – that the same might happen to your business if the demand for your products or service is slowly drying up with the current state of the economy. On the other hand, you’re feeling that this means there should be more opportunity for you to gain a bigger market share. So how do you grasp that opportunity through your online marketing?

Gain instant traffic with pay-per-click adverts

As soon as you hear the news, you could set up a new campaign in your PPC account to target those searching for the closed down company’s name. Add variations of their company name to your keyword list and create adverts that inform searchers that the company has closed down, as well as displaying your key USP. Let’s make an example, let’s say you have a website that sells football socks and your company name is ‘Red Socks United’. Your competitor that’s closed down is called ‘Blue Socks City’. Here’s the type of PPC advert I would run along with keyword variations of ‘blue socks city’ to target those searchers:

Attract traffic to your site with a blog post

To target people searching for your competitor’s brand name through organic search, you could write an article or blog post to publish the news online. Using their name in the title could help you pick up organic traffic, and with Google’s recent freshness update, your article may just appear on the first page of results for a few days after posting. Obviously you don’t want to be seen to be taking pleasure in them closing down, so keep it non-biased and informative like a proper news post. However do make sure you have a call to action of some sort at the end of the post which encourages readers to stay on your website.

Improve your organic rankings with broken link building

This is an SEO link building technique I’ve been reading about more and more recently, and is one which I feel brings a fresh lot of link opportunities for those who have become a bit stuck and are running out of ideas. The concept is basically that you find broken links on a website that you want to gain a link from, kindly tell the webmaster that you have found the broken link whilst browsing their site and just wanted to point it out to them, with the aim that they will agree to link to your site instead, since you have content which is suitable enough to replace the previous content they linked to.

Whilst doing some competitor analysis the other day, I came across various links to a site of a company which I know went into administration last year. As they would’ve been a competitor of my new start-up client, a lot of the links that they have to their (now dead) site could link to my client’s site instead as they sell the same products that their competitor did.

Gain more revenue from your existing customers

Knowing that one of your competitors have gone bust might make you re-evaluate what you’ve done to stay successful and what you’ll probably find is that an important factor is – without a doubt – your customers. Now is a better time than any to thank your customers and businesses can always do more to gain more revenue from their existing customer base. Why not send out a newsletter/email to everyone on your subscribed list and offer them a brilliant discount, free delivery or a free gift with every purchase – whatever you think your customers will appreciate, what you can afford to give away and still make a profit on.

Don’t let a competitor’s misfortune get you down, instead adopt these positive online strategies to try and increase your share of the online market. If you need any help with putting these strategies into place, call Creare on 01788 551 591.

Do you know any celebrities? Have you thought about using them to help your search rankings? It’s a bit of an odd idea but I think it can actually work – and on several levels. Here’s why.

You’ve probably heard by now of people selling tweets or followers. For some time now celebrities have been generating additional income through this and – I’d imagine – to a fair bit of success.

Not only does the tweet get published to thousands – if not millions – of followers and can bring you many clicks and followers, it also acts as an endorsement from that celebrity. And I think that’s why so many people are turning to celebrities to push their brand or cause, whether it’s for charity or for financial gain through business.

We know that celebrity endorsement works – that’s why we see Michael Parkinson selling life insurance policies, George Clooney selling coffee machines and Davina McCall and Cheryl Cole advertising hair products on the television.

Taking this back into the online world, with Google Plus becoming more important as a social tool – as well as an SEO tool – getting high profile +1′s from authoritative celebrities is one way of publicising (or even initiating) endorsement quickly and encouraging people to click your site within the search results.

Let me explain. Those that are logged in while searching and have a Google Plus account will see which of the people they follow have +1′d your site. If that celebrity is one of those that are being followed this will appear in the search results next to your listing and the chances of click-through and potential sales potentially can increase massively.

Chosen wisely, the celeb will also have close ties to your industry and with a wide reach this could be a very powerful move for your online SEO campaign.

Not only that, but through the association between your business and the celebrity you might also see people publicly talking (via social media, forums and blogs) about the decision made by the famous face and it all contributes to creating buzz. In turn, this could quickly lead to links pointing to your website helping to push it up the search results.

Previously, a celebrity endorsement would be printed on leaflets and magazines and put on radio and television adverts and took time to be publicised, yet with social media it is almost instant and reaches out to those that are already ‘connected’ with the celebrity. And now that these +1′s appear within the search results, the connection is made obvious to those looking for products and services similar to what you provide – a connection that could work really well.

The idea is very quick and potentially very effective when it utilises social media, particularly powerful if there’s a good overlap between the celebrity and your audience and can be exploited as often as you like. It can also work for highly authoritative and well-known figures within your industry.

As for the cost… please contact your nearest celebrity.

With famous faces such as Gordon Ramsey, Jamie Oliver and even Manchester United footballer Rio Ferdinand opening restaurants across the country, what does it take to create the perfect menu?

It’s a difficult task with so many delicious foods to choose from and it’s the same in SEO; let’s see if we can create the perfect SEO menu to boost your campaign.

Starter

This part of the meal is all about setting the scene, so think carefully about presentation as it allows your diners to create an early impression of what you are trying to achieve.

There’s no such thing as the perfect starter as everyone is individual and will like different things. However, one way to play it safe is a fresh fruit salad packed full of delicious flavours; using ingredients sourced from across the world, you can inject a host of tastes into your dish to set your diners’ taste buds alight.

Your website is the first impression your customer will get of your business and just like a starter, it should portray the right message. Should you suffer from bad web design, users won’t stay on your site for long and instead will head to your competitors.

Main Course

The main course should be a wholesome dish full of fresh and seasonal ingredients. You can show off your skills and add flair with creative cooking but don’t go crazy as sometimes less is more, so keep it simple. Whether you are cooking a British favourite like stew or an Italian pasta dish, you should ensure that you are prepared and have a well-stocked kitchen before starting.

Google changes their algorithms regularly and this is where you need to keep up to date with the changes in search engine optimisation. One aspect of SEO that Google is putting a higher priority on recently is Social Media signals; this is where you can get creative by managing Facebook or Twitter accounts for your business and increase your brand image with your customers.

Dessert

This is the last dish your diners will taste so you need to make it memorable and make sure it is in keeping with the rest of your menu. If you have a theme, don’t be lead astray because you want to create your favourite chocolate dessert. If you’re sticking traditional and making a delicious cake, make sure you try it out before putting it on your menu to ensure the ingredients infuse well together. Most importantly you need to create a strong dessert to end your meal on a good note.

As you would test and try ingredients to create the perfect cake, consider using specific programmes to determine the best keywords to optimise for in your campaign. By having a strong end to your meal, you will make your message clear and concise just as you would ensure your call to action is clear. Furthermore, don’t go mad adding lots of different ingredients; instead, give each page of your site a clear focus and optimise for just a few specific keywords instead of several that won’t bring in the amount of traffic you are hoping for.

Whether creating an SEO menu or venturing into the world of food, you should have a clear understanding of who your audience is and what they will find appealing. Finally, and most importantly, keep up to date with the latest trends in both industries to ensure the best results at all times!

To be in the Content Team, you need to be a whiz with words, a pro at proofreading and a guru of grammar, and we’re looking for people with a passion for writing to join us here at Creare.

Following on from the success of last year, we’ll be expanding even further, and we’re looking for some fresh new faces to work within the Content Team to help provide our clients with a service that is second to none.

So, what does the Content Team do?

Well, we like to think of ourselves as an essential cog within the SEO department, providing good quality content such as blog posts, press releases and much more! Currently, we’re made up of two teams  all working closely together and are looking for the right people to expand the team even further.

We welcome all applications, but the ideal candidate would be an English/Journalism graduate with a real passion and enthusiasm for writing and/or online marketing.

If you think this sounds like you, then please send your CV to jenny@creare.co.uk.

We look forward to hearing from you soon!