Sam Raife, Author at Brand Ambition

The Importance of Cultural Branding in 2023

by Sam Raife | Nov 17, 2022 | Strategy

Consider the global environment we live in today. Customers are better informed than ever before. Employee expectations and career choices reach far beyond just their wage. Social consciousness is not only mainstream but due to the impact of social media, it is demanded and continually peer-judged. Skilled workers are in high demand, with companies across nearly every sector struggling to fill roles, driving up wage costs.

Ultimately, growing a company in 2022 relies upon more than just a healthy profit margin. In fact, a recent Linkedin study showed that 63% of workers put Work-life balance at the top of their priorities when looking for a new role. In the UK, 45% consider company culture a top priority. So for SME brands looking to break through the competition and the noise is Cultural Branding the silver bullet branding strategy for success?

What is Cultural Branding?

In the most basic terms, cultural branding is the process of creating a brand that reflects your internal culture and ideals. Externally, this means representing yourself and your company in a way that aligns with your values, beliefs and goals. Authentically.

The authentic part of this is probably the most important aspect of cultural branding. It means acting the way you want others to see you inside the organisation and outside of it. The good thing is that you don’t have to be huge to achieve it. You can be an SME, a non-profit or a consultant and still have cultural strategy at the core of everything you do.

The authentic part of this is probably the most important aspect of cultural branding.

It means acting the way you want others to see you inside the organisation and outside of it. The good thing is that you don’t have to be huge to achieve it.

You can be an SME, a non-profit or a consultant and still have a cultural strategy at the core of everything you do.

What are the benefits of having culture at the heart of your organisation?

Aside from gaining a focus away from being focused solely on the monetary. Putting a cultural strategy at the heart of your brand marketing strategy opens up new opportunities across different generations.

Forbes reported that :

“A recent Harvard business review showed that in general, Boomers (Born between 1946 and 1964) tend to value loyalty and money over career specifics. Gen X (Born between 1965 to 1980) values ownership and autonomy. Millennials (born 1981 to 1996) value innovation, collaboration, freedom, experiences and creativity. Gen Z (Born between 1997 to 2012) values progressive equality, conscious consumerism, activism and pragmaticism.”

So if the current and advancing Gen Z buying consideration, puts their social conscience at the heart of the thought process, then for a company to grow, adapt and thrive having benefits within your organisation or brand that goes far beyond a simple transaction is going to be an important piece of the puzzle. Cultural branding allows you to create a loyal following. A loyal following in 2022, generates an unlimited number more opportunities than the simple word-of-mouth transaction in the Gen Z and Millennial era.

As a result, some of the benefits of putting culture at the heart of your branding are:

A stronger brand identity that is more memorable and easier to recall. Creating a sense of community.
More effective marketing campaigns, as you can target specific groups of people based on their cultural characteristics. Rather than just age and gender.
Improved employee retention rates as employees feel valued for who they are and not just what they do.
Increased sales as you can better understand your customers and tailor your offerings to match customer needs.
Greater profits, as you can charge higher prices, without losing customers.
Stronger relationships with suppliers, partners and customers as you all build trust through shared values.
A consistent and recognisable image, that isn’t hidden behind a corporate veil.

The importance of taking a stance and understanding the impact.

There are many different representations of what defines “culture”. The impact of your marketing team taking a stance on a topic that aligns with your cultural strategy is that you tend to alienate another group by default.

A Linkedin study on engagement opinions around posts that discussed “flexibility” is an example of this. In the study, the positive and negative engagements of a company mentioning flexibility were analysed and split into generational categories.

As we can see for Gen Z, flexibility is seen as an overwhelmingly positive aspect, but to a Baby boomer, the topic could alienate people.

The same can be seen across economic and social issues shared on Social Media channels.

Ultimately, If you’re going to take a public stance on a divisive topic, such as politics, the environment or social justice issues, then you need to decide if you’re doing that as you, or as your company.

If you’re doing it yourself, then you’ll have to accept that there will be backlash from some of your followers. But if you’re doing it as your company, then you can use that as a way to connect with other companies and organisations that share your views. Culture is something that is constantly evolving.

As new generations enter the workforce, the workplace changes too.

Examples of Successful Cultural Branding Strategy

Without going over the same iconic brands such as Apple, Nike, Under Armour, Coca-Cola and Gym Shark, let’s consider some of the successful brands in a local SME setting, achieving broader reach as a direct result of their focus on creating a cultural movement.

Get Baked

The Leeds-based bakery, with over 80k followers on Instagram, turned a PR nightmare into a cult brand opportunity after a customer sent a complaint to trading standards about the “illegal” US sprinkles they were using on products in the UK store. The company turned the whole thing into a positive, by being open about their passion and refusing to compromise on the quality of the product. The public banded together creating #sprinklegate where the company managed to turn the ordeal into a whole new sideline, working over the next few months to manufacture their own version of the sprinkles they wanted and would pass UK regulations.

Their foul-mouthed, and abusive customer posts on social media, is an example of how powerful and liberating a culture-focused approach can be.

Where most other business-to-consumer companies are slaves to their customer reviews, the Get Baked team earn more customers by berating the ones they don’t like.

What underlines this approach is a high-quality product, a unique approach and a clear understanding of the target market. The owner, Rich Myers, demonstrates a clear passion for his produce, with an envious self-confidence and attitude that resonates with his followers in and out of the store.

The combination is clearly a recipe for success (lazy and hideous pun intended).

Tred.earth

Another Leeds success story, Tred is an eco-friendly fintech start-up that has launched a debit card that allows you to keep track of your carbon emissions through the transactions you make, with the option of offsetting any carbon emissions at the end of the month.

The company, having raised £1million through Crowdcube has a strong focus on engaging with its target market on the issues that resonate with the company’s core focus.

With a globally growing concern and a clear recognition for data-led action on climate change, the company is the perfect example of right place, right timing, perfect strategy.

Breaking something so complex, into a tangible and actionable service isn’t easy, we reached out to Tred to comment on their success. Eleanor Metcalf – Brand, Marketing & CX Lead at Tred had this to say about the culture at the organisation

“At Tred we believe team culture is an essential part of our success: we established our team values early on and they’re the first thing new starters are taken through in their onboarding when they join.

As a small team, it’s essential that we all behave in a way that not only produces our best work, but that also aligns with our sustainability-focused mission and produces the best outcome for our customers and, ultimately, for the planet. For example, one of our values is about building ‘a positive movement’.

Part of that is about fostering a positive team culture where we lift each other up and focus on finding solutions, not calling out problems. But it’s also about offering a positive outlook to consumers who might feel weary and defeated by the prospect of climate change – inviting them to join us in a collective effort to make a positive difference.”

Lucy & Yak

Lucy & Yak have built up a loyal and dedicated following based on their focus on an uncompromising environmentally focused clothing range, this creates an emotional connection alongside their approach to branding. With over 500k followers on Instagram and 50k on TikTok, the brand engages with its core customer base far beyond its original warehouse in Barnsley, Yorkshire.

Their focus on initiatives that create “positive changes” has been a strong central theme that continues to help the brand grow and gain loyal brand advocates that will support and promote them in everything they do.

This level of inspirational promotion can only be achieved through authentic branding and a commitment to a strong moral compass, this has led to the brand collaborating with celebrities and further strengthening its position in the market.

The brand has a strong social media presence and actively engages with its fans on multiple platforms, this level of interactivity helps the brand to create a personal connection with its audience and in turn, build trust. This is essential in today’s market where consumers are looking for brands that align themselves with causes that are important to them.

Examples of damaged cultural branding – Brewdog

Brewdog is a Scottish craft brewery that has been in the headlines a few times for all the wrong reasons.

The company’s CEO, James Watt, has been accused of sexual harassment and assault by staff members. The company has also been accused of creating a “culture of fear”, with allegations of over-work, exploitation and bullying.

In addition to these scandals, Brewdog has also faced backlash for stealing marketing ideas from Job Interviews and agency pitches. Been accused of being transphobic, sexist, and upsetting animal activists.

At its core, Brewdog promotes ideals that focus on climate change, and better working conditions and part of the B corp movement. The issue with a brand that is continually overshadowed by the behaviours of its founders, is that it distracts from the Good the company is trying to achieve, which splits opinions and loses followers.

For us, it’s a great example of how important it is to create a cultural brand that aligns with your own ideals.

***UPDATE***

Almost as soon as we wrote about Brew Dog Faux Pas, they score yet another own goal with their fake #MarketingforGood style PR stunts. The public backlash against the company has been overwhelming over their latest stunt. Just check out the headlines.

I mean they really take “Any PR is Good PR” as a mantra…

Five steps to start introducing a cultural branding strategy into your SME.

1. Define it.

What makes you passionate? Why do you work? Why did you start the company, or why do you work for it? Where do you find your joy? How do you want to be remembered? What legacy are you leaving behind?

Asking questions about what defines you and the culture of your organisation is an important first step. At Brand Ambition, we started with the idea of legacy. We decided that what we ultimately wanted our company to do was leave a positive legacy behind. Then we started to explore that out and make decisions about what that meant. We decided that the most important aspects of that meant firstly, supporting our clients to reach their ambitions and secondly, mentoring our employees into the best versions of themselves, regardless of how long they work with us.

Download our Cultural Branding Strategy Board

To help you put together your own defined Cultural Branding strategy, we’re giving away our Cultural Branding Strategy Board. Simply click on the image to download the PDF, or get in touch and we’ll email it to you.

The work on our Cultural Branding Strategy gave us focus, to create services such as Spark*, the SEO-first content and social media delivery service, that supports “digital skills for good” development in apprentices and graduates by ensuring their first interactions with client-facing marketing happen on campaigns that focus on leaving the world behind a better place.

2. Hire candidates based on culture first.

Skills in a lot of industries can be taught. But in a lot of industries, such as manufacturing and engineering trained skills are in short supply. So how do you overcome finding the right person, vs finding anyone that can just do the job?

The ongoing skills shortage makes it even more important to hire the right people. One of the business owners, Alex Beardsley of ABL Business I’ve had the pleasure of networking with always talked about how they were looking during the interview process to see if they were “ABL”. They turned their company name “ABL” into a verb, to describe the people they wanted. The people that fit in with their corporate culture. The rules set around this were purposefully created to be inclusive but focused on finding the right people that shared their ideals commercially.

Our clients are entrepreneurs, marketing managers of SMEs, busy business owners and booming start-ups. We know that our clients need a marketing company that can just get stuff done, and that stuff might be anything in full digital marketing spectrum; Branding, Design, Advertising, Email, Website Development, SEO, PR, Social Media, Content Writing, Video Editing etc. So we hire multi-skilled and talented marketing professionals that have a proven commercial track record. Our PR and Content manager Megan, owned and was a successful doughnut slinger and cult coffee shop owner before coming to work with us. Our first apprentice Amara came to us with a desire to learn marketing after obtaining a 1st Class honours degree in Law.

3. Reinforce your culture from the inside out.

Staff benefits. Staff away days. Staff nights out. Is your culture built around casual benefits, or tied to your core values? I was lucky enough to attend sessions with Culco. a culture-first peer networking group in Leeds. The focus of the discussions were sharing how culture could be made an everyday part of the companies sat round the table. The key was to start by defining what the culture was, then building it into the everyday.

Look at how the tone of voice is carried across internal and external communications. Are your brand values visible throughout the workspace? Do corporate events and team engagement encourage those core values? Do the staff benefit?

During the process of our own cultural brand strategy, we defined nine core values:

Family First.
Efficient Through Innovation.
People Before Profit.
Local Experts, Wordly Experience.
Planet Saving Digital Disruption.
Brutally Honest, Consistently Constructive.
Excite, Surprise, Delight.
Ignite the Fuse.
Explode Expectations.

Each one of these sits at the core of our actions. In the spirit of being brutally honest, this is of course marketing b**s**t. But, these core values also help guide our decisions on policies. We believe in putting Family first, so we developed a flexible working policy that works around people’s families. We look at ways that we can grow the business profitably but focused on the people we employee first. We work under an agile methodology, that continually looks at improving the way we do things. We talk openly to clients and internally about the quality of our work, and then we find constructive ways to improve it. We always find ways to go beyond our client’s expectations.

4. Celebrate it.

We all know that Linkedin is a cesspool of self-gratifying and celebratory posts. But, in this climate of noise, driven by social media, self-promotion is an important aspect of cultural branding.

The point of creating a cultural brand is to ultimately generate a loyal and growing customer base, that does your marketing for you. To do this, you need to build loyal followers by using considered communication that is led culture first.

So once defined, you can explore the meaning behind your values. You can get closer to your target market through shared experiences of the things you care about. Whether, that is the love of a local football team, a shared hatred of certain food groups or the celebration of businesses and people like you. Celebrating your culture across social media, your website, advertising, PR and wherever else your target market consumes their news, drives engagement and purpose.

Engagement creates a considered and structured loyal following. A loyal following creates self-appointed brand ambassadors. Brand Ambassadors spread your core messages far and wide, creating more engagement and followers.

5. Involve others, and continually refine it. Consistently.

Culture is a constant evolution, like a lot of things in business, it can’t be implemented and forgotten about.

To truly generate a culture-first attitude, you need to let it evolve with those that experience it every day. Your employees and customers need should have a voice, allowing the brand to continually evolve with respect to the views originally set out.

This might look like a monthly meeting to discuss existing and new ways to reinforce the cultural strategy. It might be regular staff surveys, that allow for anonymous feedback. It could be empowering employees to engage with one another on their hobbies and interests, a staff day focused around helping the environment or supporting a charity that aligns with your brand.

If you’re not sure where to get started with Culture, I attended Culco workshops in Yorkshire, that provided a clear insight into how other businesses approach to culture, how they engage with their staff and customers on their values and how we can work together as business leaders to implement a Culture first approach.

Here is our endorsement of the course…

Don’t forget to download your Free Cultural Branding Strategy Board.

How to use SEMRush Keyword Intent to Bid Against Competitor Traffic and Steal Conversions

by Sam Raife | Apr 5, 2022 | SEO

Having utilised the full extent of the SEMRush platform over the last six years, we’re always excited to see the latest updates and utilise them to our (clients) advantage. The latest round of updates came with “Keyword Intent” within the Organic Research Section.

As an integrated digital brand ad marketing agency, we looked at how we could integrate keyword intent into our own campaigns. We are testing it in a few ways, but one of our favourite “quick solutions” was learning how to steal conversions and leads away from Organic traffic.

Here’s how we’re doing it.

Step 1 – Use the “Keyword Gap” tool to find where your competitors are ranking better than you.
Step 2 – View “Untapped” keywords and filter keywords using intents “Commercial” & “Transactional”
Step 3 – Sort by lowest CPC and Keyword Difficulty and pull together the phrases you will use in a campaign.
Step 4 – Bid against non-branded competitor terms, with low CPC’s whilst you create content to build up your rankings in these categories.
Step 5 – Monitor conversions and use the data to target better landing pages with an SEO focus.
Step 6 – Reduce reliance on Paid as rankings grow on converting keywords, rinse and repeat.

Step 1. Competitor Keyword Gap Analysis

We used the term “Refurbished iPhone” for this comparison. We then picked a number of domains from different positions in the rankings that we wanted to compare against.

We chose:

Theioutlet.com
Reboxed.co
Raylo.com
Tech-tiger.co.uk
Qwikfone.com

*If any of you guys want a link, all you have to do is let us do an audit and hire us, we have some brilliant experience within the mobile phone market…#justsaying

As you can see from the chart, there are a number of similar terms the domains share, but the majority are dominated by one competitor.

Now we need to set-up the report we want to use.

Step 2. Filter keywords by the intents and position

In SEMRush, we are using the Keyword Gap tool.

Then we need to do two things

Change the Positions for “All in the Top 10”
Select the Intent Filter and tick Commercial and Transactional, then apply.

This gives us two types of keyword Intent, which represent customers that are close to the buying stages of the sales cycle.

Commercial

Commercial keywords indicate that the searcher is looking to investigate a brand or service in our case, its users that know the phone they want and are investigating their options around the model and refurbished versions. So in terms of our customer journey, this is a fantastic entry point and introduction of our brand.

Examples of Commercial Phrases from “Refurbished Phone” Research

Keyword	Search Volume	CPC
iphone xr second hand	2,900	0.54
raylo reviews	2,900	1.77
rent a phone	1,600	1.45
best iphone battery life	590	0.62
iphone 11 pro max second hand	590	0.53
is raylo legit	480	2.17
sim free phone contract	480	0.88
ipad pro 2020 vs 2021	390	0.9
iphone 11 pro max used	390	0.53

Transactional

Transactional keywords indicate that the searcher is looking to make a purchase of goods or services. These terms should result in more conversions than any other type of traffic. So from a Paid perspective exact match versions can support strong campaign growth for low cost per conversions.

Examples of Transactional Phrases from “Refurbished Phone” Research

Keyword	Search Volume	CPC
iphone 11 unlocked	1300	0.91
iphone 8 unlocked	1000	0.97
iphone 11 pro max pay monthly	320	1.21
iphone xs 128gb	320	0.5
cheapest place to buy iphone	170	0.66

Step 3. Find the cheap and easy wins

What makes this method so powerful against other forms of keyword research?

The research uses the strongest organic profiles in any niche, alongside the SEMRush data, to identify phrases or exact match bidding terms that you might not have stumbled upon using the Google Keyword Ad Planner, or by simply performing research through the SEMRush Keyword Magic Tool.

Not only that, but you are focused on terms that will drive sales. By utilising “phrase match” or “exact match” against these terms you can filter out a lot of campaign budget waste against broad match or even phrase match on more generic terms.

Let’s compare some of the terms we found against some of the likely generic phrases that might be used to generate them.

Generic Terms on Broad Match

Keyword	Exact Match Search Volume	Keyword Difficulty	CPC	Broad Match Variations	Collective Search Volume
iphone 12	673,000	81	£0.88	6,500	2,700,000
iphone xr	301,000	79	£0.55	39,900	1,200,000
iphone 12 pro	201,000	63	£0.59	287	1,100,000
iphone 11 pro max	135,000	48	£0.62	5,000	338,000
samsung s21 ultra	74,000	62	£1.27	37	162,000

In this table we have:

The “Keyword” or Broad Match Phrase
Exact Match Search Volume – The monthly search volume for the Exact Match of the “keyword”
Keyword Difficulty – The keyword difficulty out of 100.
CPC – The average cost per click for the exact match phrase
Broad Match Variations – The number of phrases that could appear if this was set to Broad Match.
Collective Search Volume – The collective monthly search volume for all broad match phrases.

This would ultimately leave the bidding to the Google Adwords algorithm. If you have large reserves and a big budget then leaving keywords open and allowing the algorithm to find the best bidding strategy for your budget is an option. On tighter or controlled budgets this can destroy the campaign budget quickly.

Compare this against our new targeted phrases

iPhone 11

Keyword	Search Volume	Keyword Difficulty	CPC	Keyword Intents
iphone 11 unlocked	1,300	44	0.91	transactional
iphone 11 pro max second hand	590	33	0.53	commercial
iphone 11 pro max used	390	37	0.53	commercial
second hand iphone 11 pro max	390	33	0.58	commercial
iphone 11 pro max monthly payment	320	39	0.7	commercial
iphone 11 pro max pay monthly	320	42	1.21	transactional
second hand iphone 11 pro	320	29	0.55	commercial
used iphone 11 pro	320	30	0.66	commercial
used iphone 11 pro max	320	39	0.75	commercial

In this example, we ultimately end up with terms we can set to exact match and build bespoke adverts around. The competition levels are lower, the CPC’s are more achievable and we are more likely to generate conversions, whilst a lower budget will allow us to dominate the Ad Space.

Step 4. Building & bidding

Build a list fitting to your budget of terms like this to bid on for the most possible ranking gains for the lowest possible cost. Of course you want to avoid any branded terms since people searching for “coca cola” don’t really want to find pepsi.

In this case, no, Pepsi is not ok!

via GIPHY

Alongside this you want to create content to build your rankings for these keywords. You can use Pillar pages to direct more authority and encourage ranking diversity through to key service pages.

Utilising the data from your paid accounts, you can see what converts and what drives the most leads.

When you have this as an understanding, you can create content on your site that reflects the conversions. The great thing about this is that if you’re smart about it you can create Pillar / Landing pages that encourage better conversion rates for your PPC, whilst also supporting your organic rankings.

via GIPHY

Step 5. Monitor & adapt

After making these changes you need to constantly monitor your analytics to see what’s working and what isn’t. If certain keywords aren’t working then stop spending on them and reroute those funds into the keywords that are working.

Find the pages on your website that are keeping people there for the longest amount of time and direct as much traffic there as possible. Check your goals / objectives, if you’re seeing high bounce rates, this may be an indication the conversion path isn’t resonating with the target phrases.

Create more content around the topics that are generating you the most traffic. Even when you are on top of rankings it can’t hurt to secure your place even further so that it’s even harder for someone else to dethrone you.

Step 6. Reduce paid advertising reliance as organic traffic grows

Across our campaigns, one of the most asked questions is at what point can we start reducing paid budgets in favour of organic?

The answer is never as simple as switching off paid in favour of organic, but over time we work with clients to reduce their reliance on paid advertising, or at the very least reposition the budget into new target areas as the SEO builds.

In reality, we find that around 80% of our clients continue to grow spend across both channels as they see a strategy that produces consistent growth and results. You can see more about our successful search strategies in our case studies.

SEO is an ongoing process so in reality you’ll be constantly looking to replicate these steps.

If you’re still unsure about anything here and need some advice on SEO for your website, feel free to reach out to us at hello@brand-ambition.com and we’d be happy to have a no obligation chat and see if we can help you out. Even if it’s just a bit of free advice!

via GIPHY

3 things you can do right now to get into SEO.

by Sam Raife | Jan 4, 2022 | SEO

We started Brand Ambition with a clear ideal; Marketing for Good is Good for Marketing.

One of the goals we set when starting the company was to help and encourage the next generation of Digital Marketing professionals as we grow.

Our job adverts for our most recent hiring round generated over 200 CVs and we reviewed every single one. We don’t care about direct experience in digital marketing and SEO, but we do care about passion for the subject.

The biggest thing that stands out for us is when someone has gone above and beyond to make something themselves.

It might be:

An active YouTube channel.
A Shopify store
A website for a parent
Started a business
Got to 10,000 followers on a social media channel.
Started a blog
Been a contributor to a magazine

But honestly, some of these skills are so rare that even demonstrating a sound knowledge of how the internet works beyond social media can be a fantastic asset.

So you wanna be an rock SEO star?

I don’t believe that anyone growing up dreamt of working in digital marketing, SEO Sam doesn’t quite have the same ring as Fireman Sam, but here we are.

My first ever personal project and learning ground was a “Geek Blog” on the now-defunct blog Battletoys.co.uk. As you will see from the link, it now points to my latest passion project. The blog wasn’t a huge success, but I did manage a few minor successes.

I blagged a number of products from tech and toy companies to review
I created connections with other blogs and managed to get guest posts on other websites.
I earned money (about £5.80) on Amazon Affiliates by creating a Marvel T-shirt affiliate store.
I taught myself how to use WordPress, how to code, how to read code and also how to utilise plugins to my advantage.

I had hundreds of little learnings from simply setting up a blog and learning how to make it look similar to what was in my head.

So, the Brand Ambition first tip is a simple one.

Tip 1. If you want to learn how to do SEO, start a passion project online and put something on a website. Go through the process of buying a domain, getting hosting sorted and a CMS uploaded and set up.

You do that once. I guarantee you come out the other end of it with a better appreciation and understanding of how websites work.

Unlimited Online Resources but who do you believe?

Understanding theory and application are two very different things. I was lucky enough to have a brilliant mentor in Andrew Ash at Enjoy Digital. He let me apply knowledge, make mistakes and was patient, even when I wasn’t.

One of the things I learnt, very early on, in my career was that everyone in SEO has an opinion on how they think the Google Algorithm works…All of them are right and all of them are wrong at the same time. SEO is a testing process, not an exact science. The technical elements and Google guidelines are open to interpretation and often something that works for one site, might not have the same impact on the next site.

I start every employee off with resources collated by my peers, because it also provides a good list of websites to check in with when you want to learn something new.

Tip 2. Learn and Read. Put what you learn into practice. Here are a few resources to get you started.

The Brand Ambition Top SEO Resources in 2022.

Let’s start directly from the horse’s mouth…

Google SEO Resources

I love this video from Google on how to hire an SEO. It’s exactly right, yet they’ve done it in a way, that makes you not want to trust it.

The 7 Best Beginners Guides to SEO Rated by Brand Ambition.

1. Learning SEO – I point every new starter to this ultimate list of SEO resources, learnings and support network. The list, compiled and most importantly constantly updated by Aleyda Solis is the one resource that makes most SEO professionals say “I wish I’d had that when I was starting out”.
2. Moz – Beginner’s Guide to SEO – For those just starting out and looking to get an understanding then the Moz guide is a good, simple guide to understanding the basics of SEO. The information is still fairly relevant and the fundamentals are in easy to read chunks.
3. The Google SEO Starter Guide – Getting an understanding of how Google talks about SEO is a great way to start out. Google is idealistic in its approach to SEO. Focusing on the user experience and getting people to the right answer in the quickest time. Actual Search Engine Optimisation is a little more complex than that, but it’s certainly a good place to understand the fundamentals.
4. Ahrefs – SEO Basics – A simple chapter utilising Ahrefs data to get a clearer understanding of the most important elements within SEO. Definitely worth a read to get an understanding from a data powerhouse whose SEO software powers the analysis of more than 50% of the SEO community.
5. SEMRush SEO Checklist – The other 50% use SEMRush and this checklist is a great basics list for ensuring SEO health. Super digestible and easy to understand once the other guides have provided a bit of context.
6. Sitebulb Hint Explanations – Our favourite Technical SEO tool belongs to the team at Sitebulb. As well as some truly witty release notes, the team have put together a full list of the hints their software checks for and an explanation of why they look at that hint, whilst providing further reading to give an indication of its importance. Getting a proper understanding of each one of these hints essentially makes you an SEO expert, so it’s a great learning manual. Note down anything you don’t understand, do further reading and some testing and you’ve got a pretty great learning structure to understand and implement Technical SEO recommendations.
7. Backlinko’s Link Building Guide – You can’t do SEO without building links and this is one of the most comprehensive guides on beginner link building strategies I’ve found to share with SEO execs.

Find a mentor.

You don’t need to read a thing or start up your own business to be an SEO. Another route is simply to find the right person to teach you. Read that again…I said The Right Person. I’ve worked alongside enough people to know when they’ve had the wrong SEO mentor and it doesn’t turn out well for the websites or the clients that belong to them.

Tip 3. Linkedin can be a fantastic source for discovering talented SEO professionals looking to give back, but the SEO Twitter community is one of the most active online resources. It can be a bit…cutting with embelished opinion sometimes, but through the noise its one of the best places to get insight and news on SEO. Check out @techseowomen & #SEOtwitter to get started.

When looking for a mentor, my advice is to check out their portfolio utilising some of the free tools that are above. If you can see a dip in traffic, or simply a pattern of constant decline, then you know you can speak to the person you’re about to trust to teach you SEO and get them to explain why a website isn’t performing.

We regularly review our accounts, to get a clear understanding and most SEO’s I know would be more than happy to take people looking to learn through the progress, what we are doing to fix issues and when we would expect to see positive results.

Where we love to recruit from

My favourite place to recruit from at the moment is a mixture of journalism graduates, who end up with an incredibly solid understanding of PR and often come ready to learn the basics of SEO and Digital Marketing Apprenticeship Graduates.

I’m increasingly impressed with the quality of the candidates that do a Digital Marketing Apprenticeship, their rounded knowledge often surpasses Degree level marketing graduates for real-world application. So if you’re considering a Digital Marketing career path and want some formal education, as an employer, I’d strongly recommend the Apprenticeship scheme.

I hope this insight into our hiring process helps anyone looking to get into SEO. Of course, this is just our opinion and there is no clear path. If you want to get into SEO as a career, ultimately the key is just to learn and put it into practice. We spend a lot of time talking about what digital marketing is, but the true success stories are those that put their plans into action. You can read all the articles you want to on a subject, but until you apply it, you have no idea how things will play out in reality.

A Very Happy BA Birthday No. 1!

by Sam Raife | Sep 20, 2021 | Company News

Back to school, the football season really clicking into gear, the gradual cooling of the weather, shorter days and pumpkin spice back at Starbucks. September has some pretty major landmarks in it, but for us September takes on even more significance as it’s officially our birthday!

Robin and myself are both parents, and when a child turns one, you look back and reflect on the landmarks of the first year – the first trip home, first night sleeping through the night, first time they crawled, maybe the first time they walked or first words.

So like the true proud parents we are, we’re reflecting on our first year in business and some of the major landmarks we’ve enjoyed along the way.

September 1st - our first day:

SR – The first day felt like any other work day. We’d spent the last six months working from home as a result of the pandemic, so there was actually a huge anti-climax on the first day of the company starting. Robin and I spoke over zoom and I probably changed my Linkedin status, but the focus for the day quickly became about creating a sales template and following up a few prospective clients I’d arranged in the build up to working full time on Brand Ambition.

September - our first invoice day as Brand Ambition:

SR – We knew we were on the right track when it came to sending out our first three invoices. 15 days after starting the business, it felt like a big occasion.

It meant that all of the hard work that Robin and I had put in the build-up to starting Brand Ambition felt worthwhile. We knew it would be a long road but this was a big step along the way.

I remember a text exchange with my Dad, who is our financial director and is an investor in the business and him saying that this would be the first of many. It was a moment that everything felt real

December - our first Christmas:

SR – By December, we were pretty much fully booked. Both Robin and I were working flat out and we knew we needed to make a change, especially with the holidays coming up. We couldn’t get together for a Christmas party or anything, but I was lucky enough to be invited to one at a clients office and was incredibly grateful to kick-off the holiday season with some festivities.

We spent our time off well, and developed a bit of a plan, which we put into action in January.

January - our first hire:

SR – As we entered a new year, we took a big step as a business as two of us became three. We’d had an uptick in business at the back end of the festive season and we needed someone that could come in and help us take the next step.

With so much content needed for websites and the need for us to get out there as a business, we made the decision to bring in a PR and Content Manager. I’ve known Pete for a while from a previous role so when I saw he was available, I got in touch.

After having a chat with him (Pete likes to talk so it was a long chat) I introduced him to Robin via a Zoom call. After seeing how the pair of them got on – neither would shut up – it felt like a great fit for everyone. On the 18th January we were officially a trio.

April - our first trip to the office (not just Sam):

SR – As lockdown restrictions eased, we were able to venture into the office as a pair for the first time, with our PR and Content Manager Pete joining me in the Fantastic Media offices for the first time. Although it sounds like a small achievement, it really felt like we’d taken another big step forward!

May - our second hire(s):

SR – After hiring our first full-time member of staff in January, we were joined by another two members of the team in May. We’d had a number of new business wins and additional projects from existing clients, so it was clear we needed a bit of help, particularly across SEO and design.

After going through the interview process fully remotely, it was great to finally meet Myles and Dylan face to face as we spent a few days in the office getting to know each other in person.

June - our first time together in Northern Ireland:

SR – As restrictions eased further, I took full advantage of the opportunity to hop across the Irish sea and have a couple of days in person with Robin in Belfast.

One of the many benefits of us being a family business, is that I was able to bring my son along and have him spend some quality time with my side of the family. It was something that we’d just not been able to do over the previous 16 months due to the pandemic. Robin and I had a very productive couple of days together and my son had a brilliant time with the family.

July - our first office day together as a full team:

RH – In July, I was able to take the reciprocal step across the Irish sea to have a full day with the team. It was the first time that I’d met Pete, Dylan and Myles in person and the first time I’d been to Leeds in a long, long time.

Remote working is great and we have it down to a fine art at Brand Ambition, but there is something about being together as a team, face to face that you just can’t beat. Along with a productive day talking about who we are as a business, spending time refining our proposition and just generally having a good laugh with each other, we were then able to blow off some steam and spend the evening in a social setting.

August - Sam’s first holiday abroad from the business:

RH – After plenty of nudging from my side, Sam finally took a well deserved break and headed off to sunny Spain to spend a week topping up his tan and enjoying plenty of time with family.

It felt like a pretty big step for us as a business as we wanted to make sure that Brand Ambition ran just as smoothly with Sam or myself taking a break.

September 2021 - Invoice number 100.

SR – September 3rd – almost a year to the day that we sent our first invoices, we sent invoice number 100. Talk about coming full circle.

September - we’ve officially turned one

SR – Robin came over for a strategy meeting. As we turned one, we realised that a lot of what we initially set out to do had come to fruition, but that certain elements were starting to change and shift the way we work.

The day brought the team together to get a clear company vision and a clear direction for the company over the next 12 to 24 months. We have some ambitious plans for our direction so keep following our journey to see where we go next.

This day concluded with the Inaugural Annual Brand Ambition Birthday Games (or the Gonk’Athon.) Where a series of Games are played to win the honour of taking our “Gonk” Trophy home for the year. Well…what’s the point of starting a company if you’re not going to start ridiculous traditions that with any luck will be played out for years to come.

Reinvigorating a sleeping giant with Bauer Media

by Sam Raife | May 11, 2021 | Case Studies

Bringing the Downtown Brand to life for Bauer Media

“Brand Ambition have revitalised the Downtown Brand. For a number of years the station had an outdated image which was impacting on the listenership. We now have a modern, fresh new identity which is designed to exploit our evolving demographic and digital platforms. Reach and Hours continue to improve substantially.” .

Simon Mann

Commercial Director, Bauer Media

Overview

After working with Bauer Media over the years, we’ve become a trusted partner for them and their brands of radio stations – some of the biggest in Northern Ireland.

Owned and operated by Bauer media, The Downtown Radio brand is synonymous with radio in the country and has been for more than four decades.

From a total brand overhaul, a creation of a new brand identity for a new radio station and social media, to email marketing, advertising and B2B campaigns, we’re the go-to agency for Bauer Media in Northern Ireland when it comes to anything visual.

It’s a relationship that has been built and advanced over time. Our honest approach, and tireless work ethic combined with excellent results has developed a relationship that we’re incredibly proud of and we look forward to continuing for years to come.

A New Brand Identity – Downtown Radio Brand Identification

Background:

The way that radio is being consumed is changing rapidly. Smart speakers, apps and online listening have introduced a whole new world of choice.

Unlike the evolution of how we consume music, the brand identity for Northern Ireland’s original commercial radio station hadn’t changed since the eighties.

The Challenge:

A new identity was required that reflected the changing face of the station in a way that appealed to its listeners.

After extensive research, insight and exploration, it was decided that the new identity for Bauer Media would appeal to listeners who wanted to simply hear great popular music.

The Solution

This fresh, simple and modern brand solution emphasises and accommodates this evolution of how listeners consume music. Its relevant iconography has been created, with the standout D at the start of Downtown hinting towards the pressing of a ‘play’ button.

Meanwhile, the strap-line reflects the brand’s ambitions and inherent strengths, with a line that points to exactly what listeners get when they tune in, and a brand strength that has been built upon for decades – great music.

Alongside the nod to the way we now consume music and a strap-line that really gets to grips about the strength of Downtown, the brand has been designed in such a way that it can also be used across a range of different platforms, without ever losing its impact or key recognizable traits.

Aldi Bullies Yet Another Brand into Submission

by Sam Raife | Apr 22, 2021 | Market Analysis

TL: DR

Aldi uses social to disrupt M&S website traffic using strategic Social Media & SEO tactics.

Aldi isn’t a plucky underdog, it’s way bigger than M&S in the grocery market and has essentially been bullying them for years.

We answer the question on everyones lips. Is Colin the Caterpillar more famous than Niall Horan?

Aldi hasn’t won every battle. M&S held its own last Christmas.

Aldi doesn’t just do this to “Big Brands”, it constantly copies products leaving small businesses out of pocket

These small businesses tend to be set up to do good in the world, rather than solely set up to make a profit.

At Brand Ambition, we think that is bad…

Aldi has a long-forgotten history of spying on staff, funding North Korean nukes and drug smuggling.

It’s not lost on us that the #FreeCuthbert marketing stunt has generated a powerful amount of positivity around the Aldi brand, whilst also successfully showing up a rival.

As a piece of honest marketing and brand building, it has gained national interest, in the way that only large brands on social media can.

Aldi bullies Marks & Spencer into submission with social media…but at least M&S is big enough to fight back.

What’s disappointing is that it is another example of elitist brand building that damages small businesses and widens the gap between brands with a social conscious and those that, well, don’t.

Marketing campaign success aside, Aldi is a market-dominant bully, that is seemingly flouting copyright legislation (it’s a very complex issue, one which we aren’t qualified to comment on) to generate additional market share, kicking a traditional Yorkshire brand when it’s already down.

Nielsen Grocery Market Share Data – 2019

Live Kantar GB Grocery Market Share Data

Whatever data you use to define Grocery Market Share, it’s lucky for M&S that it has a strong & loyal customer base with a renewed online presence, boosted by Covid technology adoption, otherwise, this attack on its brand trademarks might drive its illusion of affordable quality back to the days before the 2006 launch of: ‘This is not just food. This is M&S Food’.

Consumers see Aldi as the plucky underdog, fighting against the “establishment”, aligning itself with brands such as Brewdog and taking pop-shots at established traditional brands like M&S, but in reality, it’s a global brand that gives consumers what they want, cheaper products at the highest possible quality.

Let’s weigh up how Aldi has been taking pop shots at M&S for a while.

Starting with Search Volume and Google Trends, we can see that in the last 7 years, Aldi has won the demand all year round, even Christmas, since 2016.

But this wasn’t enough for Aldi, its continued to belittle M&S on everything it does.

In fact, since 2016, according to SEMRush data, Aldi has seen Organic keyword growth of 1,347%.

Moving from 22,500 keywords in the top 100 to over 335,000 ranking phrases. Its move to create disruptive marketing campaigns that focus on products has led to a direct increase in Organic search recognition. As an SEO tactic, it’s been pretty flawless.

Three times Aldi has outright attacked M&S in a scrap for marketshare.

1. #Freecuthbert & #CaterpillarsforCancer

The moment that inspired the nation to free a cake recipe and wrestle the ownership away from M&S, which included a series of tweets including:

This is not just any court case, this is… #FreeCuthbert

— Aldi Stores UK (@AldiUK) April 15, 2021

Followed by another (albeit hilarious) attack on the brand.

Marks & Snitches more like. #FreeCuthbert

— Aldi Stores UK (@AldiUK) April 16, 2021

If you thought this was just harmless banter, then you don’t know the power of Colin for the M&S website.

Data from SEOMonitor shows that “Caterpillar Cake” has 178 Keywords in the phrase cluster driving 610,000 searches per month.

Phrases that include “Colin” and “cake” has a massive 243,000 searches a month.

To put that in perspective popstar Niall Horan only gets about 100,000 searches a month. So is Colin the Caterpillar more famous than Niall Horan?

Yes. Yes he is (according to SEO Monitor)

Pre #FreeCuthbert M&S was dominating the SERPs on this phrase. It drove huge amounts of traffic for the brand, which ultimately drove sales.

As you can see from the SERPs before #FreeCuthbert, Aldi isn’t even on the list. Its cake was going relatively unnoticed and certainly wasn’t helping them drives sales. Then post-campaign, the SERP is now dominated by Aldi and the search volume according to Google trends has seen a 900% increase.

What is seen as a piece of reactive social media, will have long-lasting impacts on traffic to the M&S website.

Good to know: This isn’t an actual snapshot of the SERP, but it is the SERP using the “time” feature to pick on a particular day.

The Identical Drinks Trays

In November 2020, Aldi went after the M&S home market, by creating a popular duplicate of a Mirrored Drinks Tray.

The power of the PR around this piece has pushed Aldi on to the first page rankings for the phrase “Drinks Tray”, which gets around 4,400 searches a month & has ensured they now dominate first and second for the phrase “Mirrored Drinks Tray”.

The kirkton range has generated over 200 linking domains since launch, helping their entire home section and special buys range to continue the organic uplift on the website.

The fight for “Gastropub”

Believe it or not, M&S has won this battle. The range launched in time for Christmas competed directly against M&S food items and undercut the price on every one.

Despite the blatant attack on their Gastropub range, in terms of the other Aldi campaigns, M&S has fought this one off…for this year.

When we look at terms that drive monthly search volume according to SEMRush we get over 199 suggested terms that include “M&S” and “Gastropub”, with a monthly search volume of 4,370.

Aldi launched under the name “Gastro”, but there are only 5 keywords with a total monthly search volume of 20 for “Aldi” and “Gastro”.

Incidentally, the most searched for is the M&S Chicken and Leek Pie with 880 searches a month, so in terms of the products Aldi was competing with, the company clearly didn’t do its keyword research before hand as they didn’t have a competing product here.

Newspapers reported at the time: “According to Aldi, the collection costs almost 50 percent less than the M&S alternative, with prices starting from £1.99 and meal pairings coming in at less than £10 for two. Gastro dishes include Slow-cooked Texas BBQ Brisket, juicy Salt and Chilli Rib Rack, and Mac & Cheese with Pancetta.”

Sounds delicious, but this round goes to M&S

So…does it matter?

Big brands picking on big brands is part of the game, and we get that. In fact, the boost to a smaller brand, by being recognised by these bigger brands can drive awesome awareness and sales.

Look at the case of Brewdog…

It’s amazing what a beer can do to bring people together x https://t.co/uwCm5rmZTx

— Aldi Stores UK (@AldiUK) March 22, 2021

Brewdog got national press and nationwide support as a result of its direct attack on the brand, but the important thing here is that Brewdog had to instigate it and Aldi, despite purposely ripping off and stealing sales from a growing company, get away with appearing like it is doing everyone a favour.

At Brand Ambition, we love an underdog story. We love a brand that challenges, that rises above the fold and takes market share from the dominant players.

We love it, even more, when that brand brings others with the same values along on the journey but is that what Aldi is doing? Or is Aldi bullying smaller brands into submission and driving the market value down to the benefit of itself…and its customers.

For Brewdog, this wasn’t even the biggest thing it did throughout the year to push its brand forward as this Google trends graph shows.

In fact, the biggest story and best marketing campaign for BrewDog was this one…

The rumours are true, we’re giving away free beer!

We’re giving everyone in the UK a free 4 pack of our amazing new beer, Lost Lager

Find yours ? https://t.co/3EjYdpGi3e

Lost is the world’s only carbon negative lager – we’ll plant a tree in our forest for every 4 pack claimed pic.twitter.com/XdI79kBMyf

— BrewDog (@BrewDog) January 9, 2021

In other words, Brewdog was pre-committed to doing good in the world. Another clear example, of this, was December 2020, when its reactive PR helped them come up with the idea of utilising their venues as vaccination centres

Vaccine update: We are in now talks with the Minister For Vaccine Deployment @nadhimzahawi & @NicolaSturgeon

We have offered all @BrewDog bars to help with a quick roll out of the vaccine. For free.

We have waiting areas, huge refrigerators & ace people who can help organise. pic.twitter.com/lRRd8uYuTC

— James Watt (@BrewDogJames) December 31, 2020

The Aldi campaign might have helped with additional recognition, but the fact is, Brewdog didn’t need a large supermarket giant, stepping on its market share to make it do some good in the world and get its message across, it was already doing it.

Aldi, in this case, was simply stealing intellectual property from a brand that has worked hard to differentiate itself in a crowded market place.

Four times Aldi has stolen ideas from small companies and left them high and dry

Heck Foods – Chicken Italia Sausages

The family-run business, grown from farmers markets accused Aldi of copying its award-winning chicken Italia sausages. The founder of Heck, Andrew Keeble, labelled the supermarket a “parasite” after Aldi launched a similar looking chicken chipolatas. He went on to say: “Our customers kept getting in touch to say that Aldi is ripping-off our products and they’re not the same products.” He added, “It’s deceiving to our health and fitness audience.”

When Heck contacted Aldi and asked them to stop selling the knock-off products, they were handed a “threatening legal letter”.

The Collective – Gourmet Yoghurt Range.

The Collective also accused Aldi of copying its brand. Aldi launched a luxury yoghurt range called Moo!, bearing a striking resemblance to The Collective’s gourmet yoghurt at half the price. Amelia Harvey, co-founder of The Collective, said customers had been in contact to say they felt ‘duped’. “Aldi is deliberately trying to use the cues of successful brands to fool consumers in to buying them,” she said. “Our brand has taken seven years to tirelessly build by a small team. In one fell swoop Aldi has taken that brand value and used all our cues to cause consumer confusion.”

Speaking to The Grocer magazine, Aldi UK & Ireland chief executive Giles Hurley denied it was copying brands. He added: “What we do with our exclusive brands is identical to what the rest of the market does with own label, which is to draw cues and make products easily identifiable for customers without seeking to copy.”

Vita Coco coconut oil

Aldi undercut Vita Coco coconut oil by 75%. Leaving the company with no option but to ignore the new challenger in its market. The company was set-up to support the farming communities that supply the raw materials for their products.

Charlie Bigham’s Ready Meals

Aldi decided to make its own version, but it made them bigger and sold them up to 43% cheaper. Julie Ashfield from Aldi said that the low cost of the new ready meals will allow customers to make “substantial savings on luxury equivalents without having to compromise.” Charlie Bigham’s is a B Corp, focusing their business influence for good, funding projects like City Harvest. Beating Bowel Cancer and Magic Breakfast an organisation that helps feed over 48,000 school children.

So…

Social conscious matters. Aldi’s flippant social media campaign #caterpillarsforcancer is using a good cause to mask doing something immoral. This time, it’s M&S, next time it’s your favourite local independent.

Hey @marksandspencer can Colin and Cuthbert be besties? We’re bringing back a limited edition Cuthbert and want to donate profits to cancer charities including your partners @macmillancancer & ours @teenagecancer. Let’s raise money for charity, not lawyers #caterpillarsforcancer.

— Aldi Stores UK (@AldiUK) April 20, 2021

Aldi has a long-forgotten history of spying on staff, funding North Korean nukes and drug smuggling amongst other scandals. So let’s stop pretending it is the plucky underdog.

From our point of view, the big brands can create entertaining Twitter conversations all they like, just stop stealing ideas from hardworking brands creating quality products, that are doing good in the world by driving a social conscious.

There is a reason some products are more expensive, it’s because they aren’t trying to rip off everyone in the process of it being made.

#LocalSupportingLocal #SupportLocal

Black Friday Success with Rum Razor

by Sam Raife | Dec 16, 2020 | Case Studies

68% Increase in Bookings for Rum Razor Barbershop with a Black Friday Digital & Brand Marketing Campaign

We’d never thought about doing a Black Friday sale before, but it will be a regular feature for Rum Razor going forwards. It’s helped to make sure December will be a strong month and guarantee some bookings for January. I think for 2020, a voucher for a haircut or a beard tidy-up is clearly the push some of our customers needed to get back into the habit. Brand Ambition has turned a terrible year into a hopeful one.

Paul Cowen

Owner, Rum Razor Barbershop

The Goal

With the first UK lockdown severely impacting the Hair and Beauty Industry, many local businesses looked to pivot their services online to ensure an alternative revenue stream ahead of a second lockdown in November.

Barbers were particularly hard hit by the closures as Brits looked to maintain their haircuts at home – in fact, searches for ‘mens hair clippers’ on Google increased by 12,400% in April, while queries for ‘barber’ have seen an 18% decrease this year. .

Both full lockdown closures and Covid restrictions left local barber shops struggling to recoup costs when they were able to open.

At Brand Ambition, we saw an opportunity to help businesses raise their profile and re-engage customers through free marketing assistance. Durham-based Rum Razor Barbershop took us up on our offer to boost their online offerings around Black Friday and provide a much needed increase in revenue.

Our Strategy

After the first lockdown, Rum Razor revealed they had lost 53% of their clientele according to their online booking portal, and were looking to attract new customers and reconnect with their previous patrons during the second lockdown. As this fell over Black Friday, we realised it was the perfect time to create a campaign based on saving money and limited-time deals.

Barbershop Takings in 2020 with December Increases

The campaign involved creating bespoke gift boxes and vouchers of various sizes that were packed with discounts, key styling products and branded merchandise to entice customers over Black Friday.

The boxes were offered at different price points to appeal to all budgets and were promoted on the Rum Razor site, shared across their social media, and advertised on Facebook and Instagram.

The Results

In the week of Black Friday (23-29 November) the campaign led to a 305% increase in website visits and an 830% uplift in social media visits. This also represented a 57% increase in visits compared to those seen in the first lockdown.

Bookings for December rose by 68% during that week despite none of the offers being specifically tailored to December, By the time December came around, bookings were up 345%, while the boxes and vouchers generated revenue. This was all during a month that the barbers were unable to earn anything from their shop due to the lockdown closures.

Website Visits

Social Visits Increase

Increase in Bookings

Increase in December Revenue

Services Used in this Campaign

Marketing Strategy, Research & Analysis

To create the campaign, we first looked at the market, reviewed competitor research to understand what products might appeal to the target market and researched the customer base at Rum Razor to gain a strong understanding of his most loyal customer base.

Product Design & Development

When we understood the products that would appeal most and defined a number of price points that would benefit both customer and Rum Razor, we mocked up product images we could use on the website.

This allowed us to sell the products, without having a physical product shoot. The quality suffered a little bit, but the essence of the campaign remained.

Content Writing

We used content filled with humour for the product pages, emails and social media advertising.

this allowed us to capture the essence of Rum Razor and obtain max appeal to the local customer base, whilst also helping improve conversion rates and give us the possibility of obtaining additional social shares.

Customers commented on the amusing content within social media and even sent direct messages to express their approval.

Paid Advertising

We used a mixture of Facebook and Instagram advertising to get the campaign out quickly, within the specific local area.

We set a small budget of £100. This drove the majority of the 68% increase in bookings.

Social Media Consultancy

Rum Razor already has a strong & loyal social media following, so we simply advised on content and messaging to support the campaign.

We pretty much left Rum Razor to it as they are the experts on their customers, so the effort was collaborative and as a result, the Organic Social Media Engagement increased by 830% week on week.

Technical SEO

As well as supporting the creation of the products, we also set them up within the CMS, wrote the content and provided technical consultancy to make sure the payments were working.

As well as this, we reviewed the site for any Local SEO improvements and requested some small changes to the CMS that would help improve rankings in the future.

Can we make your next campaign a success?

If you’re a local business wondering how you can pivot your services online to boost revenue, increase brand awareness and diversify your product offerings, get in touch with our expert marketers at Brand Ambition.

How to Create a Cult Following for your Craft Beer Brand

With a market size measured at £1.4b, the craft beer industry is set to increase for years to...

How Brands and Searchers Prepared for the World Cup

The long wait is finally over On Sunday 20th November, Qatar and Ecuador kicked off the FIFA World...

The Importance of Cultural Branding in 2023

Consider the global environment we live in today. Customers are better informed than ever before....

Effective Brewery and Alcohol-Based Social Media Campaigns To Inspire Your Own!

In such a competitive market with a product that sells itself, it's getting harder and harder to...

How Algorithms Love Consistency

A start-up's guide to performing well on social media. What Are Social Media Algorithms? An...

Bump Club & Beyond – Brand Stories

Brand Stories: Lindsay Pinchuk - Founder & Ex-CEO of Baby Bump & Beyond and is an...

How to Extend Music to Fit Your Video

https://youtu.be/1_FcveZ2uaU Background music is an essential part of any video. It helps set the...

How to Camera Track in After Effects

Camera tracking can allow you to make very convincing visual effects even if you have a moving...

How to Perform a Social Media Audit

What is it? Although it may sound daunting, a social media audit isn’t as intensive as it sounds,...

Using AI to Write Content

AI is becoming more prevalent in our everyday lives. From self-driving cars to smart speakers, AI...

The SEO And Search Engine Facts You NEED To Know in 2021

by Sam Raife | Dec 11, 2020 | SEO

93% of online experiences begin with a search engine.

If you want people to find your business online, there’s simply no better method than search.

From small startups to giant global brands, organic search is the lifeblood of successful business marketing, and SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) is the dominant strategy for getting your brand noticed by the right audience at the right time.

Why? It’s simple…

Most online experiences start with Google search.
Almost everyone clicks on the first page of results.
To reach Page 1, you need high quality content with good backlinks.
Mobile optimisation is crucial in 2021.
Long-form content is essential, and increases your chances for voice search.
Your best starting point is to update your current content first.
Focus on audience-friendly content that Google will love.

The 15 Power Stats that Prove SEO is vital in a 2021Marketing Strategy

Much has changed about SEO over the years, but its vital importance to businesses hasn’t.

In fact, we’d say 2021 looks set to be the biggest leap for SEO yet, bringing audiences and brands closer after a difficult, “distanced” year.

According to Google Trends, 2020 is the first time that the UK has seen more demand for an “SEO Agency” than a “Creative Agency”, with Social Media following closely behind.

And in Northern Ireland specifically, the rise in searches for SEO and Social Media has reached new levels of interest.

So if you are looking for the stats to sell SEO services to your management team, or reviewing your marketing channels for the next financial year, we’ve brought together 15 of the most important SEO statistics around, ready to help you tap into the valuable world of digital traffic, all while attributing real value to your content investment.

The SEO Statistics you need to sell Digital Marketing for 2021

93% of online experiences begin with a search engine. (Source: Search Engine Journal)

First and foremost, SEO isn’t just a digital priority, it’s a business priority.

These days, search engines are the starting point for almost any information we want to find out – from recipe tips to cinema times, which makes it the most important marketing arena there is.

As a result, businesses that aren’t paying enough attention to SEO are risking missing out on a wealth of customers.

BONUS STAT: More than a billion people use Google Search every month. (Source: Business Insider)

With such eye-watering numbers in play, ask yourself – how much better would your bottom line look if everyone could easily find the information they needed about you online?

We want to make searching for you, your business and your content simple – and SEO makes that possible.

The stats don’t lie, SEO should be a key pillar of any marketing strategy going into 2021 and beyond if you want to keep pace with the modern world.

Last year, Google made up over 87% of all global desktop search traffic, followed by Bing at 6%, Yahoo 2.85% and Baidu at 0.7%. (Source: Statcounter)

To score highly at SEO, you need to be where the web traffic is. And for almost 20 years, that’s been Google. As you can see, they hold the lion’s share of people making web searches on desktop.

On mobile, it gets, even more, one-sided, with Google pulling in 95% of traffic. That means whether you’re looking for recipes or the weather, they’re the ones you turn to.

So, when you want to get extra eyes on your website – you have to play by Google’s rules, and that means you need a smart, agile SEO strategy to get yourself rocketing up the rankings in 2021.

On the first page alone, the first five organic results account for 67.60% of all the clicks. (Source: Zero Limit Web)

How often do you scroll to the 2nd page of Google? Or do you just keep narrowing down your search until you find what you want?

The sheer weight of searches and clicks towards the first page of Google makes it the holy grail of website traffic. In fact, 75% of people never make it past Page 1 when searching for something.

All together, that means your business is virtually invisible online if it slips to the search engine’s second page or beyond. Thankfully, there are plenty of excellent marketing strategies for boosting your site’s presence, almost all of which revolve around smart, strategic use of SEO.

70% of marketers believe SEO is way more effective than PPC. (Source: Databox)

If PPC is one of the crown jewels of your marketing strategy, then it’s time to think about shaking it up.

Is it better to put in the time and effort to climb to the top of Google’s rankings organically, or pay to skip the queue and save time for other parts of the business? The arguments between SEO and PPC for search engine dominance have rumbled on for years, but in recent years SEO has emerged as the key priority for many businesses.

BONUS STAT: SEO Leads have a 14.6% conversion rate vs outbound leads (direct mail or print), which has a 1.7% conversion rate. (Source: Search Engine Journal)

While it’s important to note that they don’t have to be separate parts of your marketing strategy (in fact, we would encourage using both to compliment one another, supplementing your SEO with PPC in the short term while climbing the search engine rankings), recent expert opinion has swung towards SEO as the superior method. And if you needed any more encouragement, SEO can often be a far cheaper method of improving your business’ marketing than the “pay-to-win” world of PPC – making it key for your budget priorities too.

In the long term, the benefits of working with an SEO agency should continue and last for a while, even if you switch it off, but if you switch PPC, you will see an instant decrease in traffic and revenue.

Let's talk about your SEO campaign today

“Over a two year period, there was a 900%+ growth in mobile searches for “___ near me today/tonight.” (Source: Think with Google)

And then they kept on growing. The stat compared 2015 to 2017, in the three years since, we’ve seen further growth and in 2020 there was a further 40% increase on the previous year. Depending on your business, you need a marketing strategy flexible enough to promote you from the top down.

In 2020, search which included the phrase “near me” exploded in amongst the pandemic and local businesses online thrived with new, local customers.

When it comes to SEO, that means an awareness of more than just the wide-reaching search terms and general audience appeal. Instead, it’s a simple step to widen your net and target people directly with local results too.

Other buying phrases that saw huge increases included “best”, like “Best Burger”, which saw a 400% increase Year on Year and “promo codes” saw an increase of 100% in 2020 as we sought to redefine value and grab a bargain.

So, if you’re already spending money on local advertising, it’s essential to supplement your efforts by making sure your content is tailored for local search results too – as this crucial statistic shows.

Check out, how local search trends across the UK were impacted during 2020, which gives insight into how they will continue in the “new normal” during 2021.

Google hinted at over 200 factors in their algorithm for ranking websites…in 2009. We can assume there is a lot more in 2020 (Source: Backlinko)

We’ve already seen statistics that show a renewed focus on local search results and mobile optimisation, but what does Google actually use to measure your website’s ranking?

Unsurprisingly, the full quota of ranking factors is a closely guarded secret, but google hinted back in 2009 there are more than 200 in play, and through a mixture of reporting, feedback, testing and educated guesswork the SEO community has supported one another to improve websites and discover what helps improve a site in the rankings.

At Brand Ambition, we check well over 300 factors for every technical SEO website audit we run.

More importantly, though, it also reveals and reinforces the need for a multi-dimensional SEO strategy going forward. If there are 200 or more things to be aware of when creating or posting your content, then it means you’ll need even more strings to your business bow to be successful.

In 2020 alone, we saw three core algorithm updates and the introduction of BERT. A natural language processing AI that was said would impact “1 in 10 of all search queries”.

High-quality content and link building are two of the most important factors for Google when it comes to your website’s ranking. (Source: Search Engine Watch)

As the famous saying goes, quality is more important than quantity – and that’s certainly true when it comes to organic traffic. As we’ve seen, there may be 200 or more factors that Google looks for, but high quality content is one of the most essential for pulling in consistent traffic and getting you moving up those rankings.

What’s more, the better your content’s quality is, the more likely customers and competitors alike are to recognise your expertise and link to it. As a result, the correlating impact is that number one rankings on Google have more backlinks than lower-ranking pages.

Source: Backlinko

After all, search engines don’t just measure your content, but the links pointing to it too, making link building equally essential for better rankings. And if you can get the balance between the two just right? That’s the real magic.

Think this is smart? You should see our strategies!

The average length of an article on the first page in Google is 1,400 words or more. (Source: Backlinko)

SEO experts have suggested for a while that longer form content often ranks better than short form content, and now we’re able to put a number on it. Finally, we can ignore anyone who tells you to treat your audience like goldfish, that they can only handle simple, bite-sized pieces of information. Instead, this recent research proves that audiences prefer detailed, thought-through content instead.

And it’s not just word count that Google measures, but the structure and depth of your articles too. The better, richer and more detailed the content – the most benefits you’ll get, like quality backlinks from other sites. After all, if you’ve got the most informative and comprehensive information on a given topic, people will want to link to it.

BONUS STAT: The average word count of a voice search result page is 2,312 words. (Source: Backlinko)

What’s more, if your content is long enough, linked enough and content rich enough – it could be in line for the a new age SEO reward too, voice search. Not only will you be ranking high, but your content will be read out to the world for specific searches, demonstrating you (and your brand’s) mastery of a given topic.

Almost 25% of companies invest in mobile optimisation as a top SEO tactic. (Source: HubSpot)

If the majority of people are searching Google on mobile, then giving your business site a mobile-friendly makeover seems like a smart and sensible thing to do.

But clearly, not everyone is doing it, which leaves room for you to take advantage – optimising your mobile site in line with your desktop site to make it as easy as possible for Google to push you up the search engine rankings now and in the future.

Google started “Mobile-first” indexing by default for all new websites on July 1st, 2019. This means that all new websites (or those previously unknown to Google) will by default be initially judged for their “mobile-friendliness”. As of July 22nd 2020, Google announced that in March 2021, this would be rolled out across the whole web.

So in 2021, the focus of your website upgrades should be on making your site “mobile-friendly” as competitors that already have this in place will get a boost when the switch is made. For more details on Google’s announcement, you can view this here.

Sample advice from Google on Lazy-loading images Desktop vs Mobile

22.6% of all search queries on Google are for images. (Source: Moz)

We’ve seen the benefits of thought pieces, long-form content, link building and even voice search. But there’s one more piece of SEO knowledge missing – images. From Instagram to Pinterest and Snapchat, the searching and sharing of visual content is more popular than ever, meaning it should be a key tool in your marketing arsenal too.

BONUS STAT: Across Gen Z and Millennial consumers, 62% demand visual search more than any other new technology.

Call it instant gratification, call it simplified information – visual search is set to be one of the breakout marketing methods of 2021, and SEO is right at the heart of it, especially among millennials and Gen Z. What does it mean for you? Simple – increasing the number of properly linked images on-site and in your articles will pay dividends.

We can help get your SEO strategy back on track

40.7% of all voice search answers came from a featured snippet. (Source: Backlinko)

Featured snippets, or “Position Zero”, have been the top dog of SEO rankings since they were launched back in 2014, but if anything – they’ve only become even more important in recent years with the growth of voice search.

From Siri to Alexa, people all over the world are starting to ask Google questions without ever picking up their phone – and, as you can see, a growing percentage of the answers are coming from featured snippets.

So, when we say that good SEO rankings are important, it’s not just to make your website and content easily findable from a Google search, but increase the likelihood of it being picked up for a featured snippet (and therefore potentially voice searches) too.

As a result of the pandemic, the smart speaker market has continued to see massive adoption rates, with almost three in ten Brits now owning and engaging with a Smart Speaker. Voice commerce is still a long way off being an established market, but brand engagement through voice search is more popular than ever and worth structuring your online content to pick up additional engagement in this manor.

47% of consumers view 3-5 pieces of content created by a company before talking to them. (Source: DemandGen)

There’s a reason that quality content is so important, and this stat shows exactly why.

Customers may have never heard of your brand before, so if they come across an informative piece they like organically, they often want to make sure it’s not a fluke – so they’ll read through more of your content before getting in touch.

If all of your pieces are optimised, content-rich, image-rich and up to date, they’re clearly far more likely to trust your brand than competitors that aren’t.

61% of marketers say improving SEO and growing their organic presence is their top inbound marketing priority. (Source: HubSpot)

Take it from those who are working on improving their ranking day in and day out, your competitors are most likely part of this 61% – which means there’s no time to waste. With rankings becoming the top priority for so many, we all need to start taking SEO and organic traffic seriously.

After all, ranking well on Google has the ability to drive inbound traffic that can give your business a boost for years to come. It’s a simple balance: improve your SEO, and it can work on bringing in the traffic.

Then, your inbound marketing teams can get to work converting that traffic into leads and eventually – sales!

Slow work day? We never thought you'd make it this far

Updating and republishing old blog posts with new content and images can increase organic traffic by as much as 106%. (Source: HubSpot)

Writing new website content is not only time consuming, but can be a complicated process too – from research to proofing and rewrites. Which is exactly why more and more companies are revisiting their current content instead.

As this stat shows, simple updates to refresh already existing work not only delivery fast results, but effective results too. After all, even the best original content can become stale over time and lose SEO effectiveness. By enhancing its search engine capabilities, you’ve already got a mountain of content waiting to be processed, re-ranked and rewarded by Google’s ranking system without writing a single extra word.

Improving or maintaining your Google ranking is never an easy thing to do, but a few simple tweaks can make a real difference to you and your business. As these stats show, SEO makes a huge difference for bringing organic traffic to your website, getting you in front of the right customers, and proving your expertise through quality content to anyone that’s looking for it. What’s more, competition is only getting more fierce.

So, if you want to give your marketing a major upgrade in 2021 and beyond, it’s time to embrace the world of SEO.

91% of all pages never get any organic traffic from Google, 55% of pages don’t have a single backlink, and 30% have less than 3. (Source: Ahrefs)

It’s a simple equation – the more backlinks your page has, the more Google search traffic it gets.

So we say, stand out from the crowd by joining the 9%.

How?

With interesting content that people want to read or share, and make sure it’s presented in a way that gives it some ranking traction on Google and makes link building easier. After all, if your website is being glossed over for organic traffic, it puts unnecessary pressure on the rest of your marketing strategy, rather than supporting it.

With a few simple fixes and a focus on quality backlinks, you’ll be amazed at the difference it makes to your business.

The Top 10 Facts to Headline Your SEO Sales Deck.

93% of online experiences begin with a search engine.
In 2020, Google made up over 82% of all global desktop search traffic.
The first five organic results account for 67.60% of all the clicks.
70% of marketers believe SEO is way more effective than PPC.
Google uses more than 200 factors in their algorithm for ranking websites.
91% of all pages never get any organic traffic from Google.
Updating old posts with new content can increase organic traffic by as much as 106%.
The average length of a top search position article in Google is 1,400+ words.
Almost 25% of companies invest in mobile optimisation as a top SEO tactic.
There has been a 900%+ growth in mobile searches for “___ near me today/tonight.”

Want to chat about SEO?

Brand Ambition is an SEO First, Brand and Digital Marketing Agency based in Leeds and Belfast. If you are looking for someone to help get your marketing strategy on track for 2021, give us a shout today.

Get in touch

Why Brand Ambition won’t rise at seven

by Sam Raife | Nov 26, 2020 | Company News

Having just won a raft of awards, and achieving a £2.5 million turnover in 16 months, the winners of the large agency of the year award (UK Search Awards 2020) started by Stephen Kenwright and Carrie Rose is admirable, but if you are reading this able to afford to work with them, then Brand Ambition probably isn’t for you.

To say the meteoric rise of Sheffield based agency Rise at Seven is a success story would be an understatement. The path to success takes many forms and I wanted to take time to explain why we don’t, won’t and can’t “Rise at Seven”.

So why wouldn’t we want to repeat the success of one of the north’s biggest agencies?

Big agency results.

Freelance Prices

To provide reliable SME marketing services, which at its core help to deliver a growing return on investment, to assist clients to grow.

We are affordable. Not cheap.

But if you get in touch, we will always leave you with something. Even if it’s just a bit of advice.

– Brand Ambition, Core Objective 2020

We’re not in the same markets.

Replicating the same level of success of another agency would be unlikely, Rise were a disrupter in a market that is saturated with large agencies, focusing on obtaining business from medium to large companies. This was never the Brand Ambition path. It’s not something we set out to do, but more to the point, we couldn’t do it even if we tried, our experience is focused on working with smaller companies, achieve amazing things on lower budgets.

It means we exclude large companies, we’re not interested in working with large brands. We love challenger brands, SME’s and start-ups. Our offering is tailored specifically to get the most out of smaller budgets. Just have a look at our work and our results.

We disrupt. But are focused on supporting smaller businesses at a price point that doesn’t replace hiring an internal team or damage the business.

We trust in Organic Growth. We are founded in SEO. We are SEO First™

One of the benefits of working with two experienced business partners is the understanding of growing a business organically. This is compounded by the fact in SEO, we’ve spent years working and waiting for the impact of results through organic results. This isn’t about slowing the pace. It is about minimising the disruption, allowing mistakes to happen and learning from them. Creating loyalty and trust with like-minded business owners and growing together.

Excite. Ignite. Explode.

Brand Ambition wants to be part of the companies we work with. It’s in our process. Whether we are sitting in your office or on a zoom call, responding to an urgent pitch. Working with you on your business growth strategy, or simply providing design assets to improve professionalism. We are Marketing Managers first with a team ready to support and deliver for you, and your company.

As one of our clients has just written in a review:

“It’s always great to find a brand that is strong in identity and creates quality work but to find one that mirrors your own ambitions and ethics and puts the same work into your business is few and far between. The guys have been a real rock for us in what’s been an awful year. Thank you.” Paul Cowen – Rum Razor Barbershop

We don’t want to compete in a saturated market.

When we wanted to understand what sort of agency we wanted to be, we did what we do best. We looked at the data and defined our market.

0.01% of businesses in the UK have above 50 Employees and are not classed as an SME.
This makes 43,300 Medium and Large Businesses in 2020.
These Businesses spend between 1% and 10% of Turnover on Marketing.
They account for 48% of revenue generated in the country.

For us, fighting it out with other agencies, to work with one of those 43,000 companies wasn’t a viable option. Especially, not as a start-up during a pandemic.

So we honed our services around the market we wanted.

52% of the country’s revenue is generated by SMEs. This was £2.2 Trillion in 2019.
5.82 Million businesses are classed as small (0-49 employees) in 2019
1.4 million of those Small Businesses have employees.
They account for £1.2 Trillion in revenue.
The average marketing spend in a small business is 12-24%.
This is an average yearly spend of £31,200 to £64,400.
That’s between £2,600 and £5,366 a month. We proudly come in less than that on all our one-off services.

A flexible marketing solution, that offers suggestions based on experience and provides services that solve specific problems and specific objectives.

Clarity and support through detail & understanding.

We are Affordable

Affordable marketing services means two things.

1. We will either do double the amount of work as some agencies for the same budget.

2. We will be half the cost.

This is based on the Clutch SEO List, you can find it here. Verified agencies on this list fill in their own minimum contract value, with the minimum being set at $1,000 (£750).

SEO Agencies in Leeds

Here are some of the top SEO agencies in Leeds and what they’ve written for their services. Full disclosure, the list contained a lot of outdated information, so this might not be as reliable as contacting the agency directly, but we know the information was provided by them.

Agency	Minimum Contract Value	Per Hour Rate	Day Rate at 7.5 Hours	Max Hours in a £7,500 Contract
Wildfire Marketing	£3,700	£75 to £110	£562.50 to £825	49
Fractl	£7,500	Undisclosed	Undisclosed	Undisclosed
Modo25 Limited	£3,700	Undisclosed	Undisclosed	Undisclosed
Cefar	£7,500	£110 to £150	£825 to £1,125	68
Twentysix	Undisclosed	£110 to £150	£825 to £1,125	68
90 Digital	£750	£75 to £110	£562.50 to £825	100
Salt.Agency	£7,500	£110 to £150	£825 to £1,125	68
Jaywing	£7,500	£110 to £150	£825 to £1,125	68
Intermarketing	£7,500	£110 to £150	£825 to £1,125	68
Pixelbuilders	£7,500	£110 to £150	£825 to £1,125	68
Brass	£7,500	£110 to £150	£825 to £1,125	68
Parallax	£7,500	£110 to £150	£825 to £1,125	68
ICS-Digital	£7,500	£110 to £150	£825 to £1,125	68
Brand Ambition	£750	£50 to £75	£375 to £526.50	150

SEO Belfast

Brand Ambition is a Belfast based agency as much as it is based in Leeds. As a service, SEO is very different in Northern Ireland, the impact of small businesses and building relationships has always been, and will always rely on local search to be at the forefront of N.I. websites. With the constant battle against “excluded from N.I.” at the frustrations of users in the country, we understand the value of strengthening local knowledge with Brand Digital Marketing. Again, data was obtained from Clutch.co and filled in by the agencies themselves

Agency	Minimum Contract Value	Per Hour Rate	Day Rate at 7.5 Hours	Max Hours in a £7,500 Contract
Web Bureau	£7,500	£40 to £75	£300 to £526.50	187.5
Search Scientist Ltd	£7,500	£110 to £150	£825 to £1,125	68
Smarts Communicate	£7,500	£110 to £150	£825 to £1,125	68
Digital Twenty Four	Undisclosed	Undisclosed	Undisclosed	Undisclosed
ProfileTree	Undisclosed	Undisclosed	Undisclosed	Undisclosed
RLA Group	£7,500	£110 to £150	£825 to £1,125	68
Element Seven	Undisclosed	Undisclosed	Undisclosed	Undisclosed
Silverink Web Design	Undisclosed	Undisclosed	Undisclosed	Undisclosed
Blue Monkee Digital	£7,500	£110 to £150	£825 to £1,125	68
Codefixer	Undisclosed	Undisclosed	Undisclosed	Undisclosed
Made To Engage	£7,500	£110 to £150	£825 to £1,125	68
Thought Collective	£7,500	£110 to £150	£825 to £1,125	68
Bluegator Creative	£7,500	£110 to £150	£825 to £1,125	68
Brand Ambition	£750	£50 to £75	£300 to £526.50	150

We are business support, then marketing.

The last 2 years have had a profound impact on the demand for marketing services. Instead of the massive reduction on spend, recorded, and predicted by Marketing Week, The Drum, and a whole bunch of other reports, search trends report an entirely different story.

Instead of a decline, demand for SEO, Branding and Digital Marketing Agencies have seen increases that match or rise above the demand for traditional Creative services. This demand is driven by SME’s backing themselves, backing support from initiatives such as the LEP Network, FSB and the 23.5 million posts to #supportsmallbusiness on Instagram.

Mass unemployment has created a boom in new business registrations in 2020. In fact, according to the .gov stats, up to Q3 2020, there was an 8.5% increase in Business Registrations compared to the previous year, and 61% fewer companies dissolved (it is important to note that changes due to legislation during the pandemic have had an impact on the number of companies that would have normally dissolved.)

With this trend, Brand Ambition is backing innovation. We are backing the smaller businesses to thrive, disrupt and grow through adversity. Every business we speak to needs support, not just in marketing, but what they can do to disrupt their market and obtain valuable leads and turn them into customers.

This influence is driven into the products and services being used by these businesses and this is where our experience starts.

We built expertise in the software used by SMEs

The search trends for web platforms have changed alongside this evolution of small businesses, and more accessible building technologies create a new challenge for Search Engine Optimisers like Brand Ambition. Understanding the limitations of individual platforms and how to get the best out of them in a search engine is actually an increasingly valuable skill.

Most SEO companies are familiar with WordPress, but here is how WordPress has seen a decline in interest over the last five years, to be replaced by Shopify, Wix and other rivals.

For the first time in its history, Shopify interest outstripped WordPress this year. The platform is easy to use, easy to set-up and uses SEO at its core, but it needs setting up correctly and there is a piece of required knowledge on plugins that will ultimately improve your chances of ranking.

Wix is another company, that has been tarnished with the “Bad for SEO” brush. A quick Google search showcases the search volumes on this topic.

As a result of being burned by SEO companies not understanding the platform, they are paid to optimise or getting focused on areas they can’t actually fix, we’ve crafted strategies and experience to help us specialise in SEO for Small Business platforms.

Here are just a few of the platforms we have expertise in.

WordPress SEO
WooCommerce SEO
Shopify SEO
Magento SEO
Wix SEO
GoDaddy SEO
Square Space SEO

With this foundation of expertise, Brand Ambition ultimately prefers to work with platforms we are familiar with. Where we can source development resource to help make improvements and where we can confidently suggest improvements that will raise a business’s profile online.

We are Maven.

It isn’t just about campaign traffic, nor is it about the results of a single campaign (although we get those too), it’s about long-term relationships that show consistent quarter on quarter growth. This is something that we do share with the larger agencies in Yorkshire and Belfast. We believe in working delivering fantastic quality marketing services across a range of impactful and effective services.

We are not an Agency.
We are not Consultants.
We provide marketing manager services with outputs, at affordable prices.
We are Experts. We are Maven.

So how do we rise?

Brand Ambition is built on its name. We believe in Ambition. We trust in building Brands. The strength of thought. The power of recognition. The desire to drive something forward and the tenacity to see it through. We don’t measure our success alongside others (although it is very difficult not to at times). Our focus is working with companies to lift themselves, supporting businesses and driving revenue that allows them to grow.

As they grow, we will grow and that is the core of how we, at Brand Ambition will rise.

Find your Customers. Build your Brand. Increase Sales.

This article has been reproduced with respect to the agencies that employ tens of people in our cities and have seen significant growth. They all started on a similar journey to us and have achieved fantastic results with their clients. We mean no disrespect, but we want to instead highlight how we are differentiating ourselves away from this particular agency model.

I contacted Rise at Seven, directly prior to us posting this article and they weren’t bothered about us using them as a shining example of success in the industry.

They also confirmed they don’t work with small organisations.

Note: Credit to Tom Walsh, for telling me the tables were broken on Mobile. Cheers Mate.

« Older Entries