Keyword Research is important to your business and this is something you are going to want to know more about.

What is Keyword Research? (And Why Is It Important?)

Keyword research is the process of discovering & validating popular words and phrases that people are using in search engines.

When you do keyword research, you can find what phrases are popular (that get search volume) and valuable (that are likely to lead to conversion).

How Does Keyword Research Work?

Keyword research is crucial for SEO success. Before we get into all the details of keyword research, here’s a quick overview of how it works:

Step 1: Brainstorm Keyword Ideas

This process often starts with brainstorming keyword ideas around what you think people would search when they are looking for your products and services.

Looking at competitor websites is another way that people can get good keyword ideas.

Step 2: Validate & Expand Your Ideas With A Keyword Research Tool

Next, you can use one of the many keyword tools to validate and expand your lists and discover other related keywords that people are using.

You’ll be able to see lots of vital information like keyword volume (to see how many people are searching per month), CPC (to see how much people are paying when they advertise on that keyword), and competition.

Step 3: Select Your Keywords

After creating a list of keywords and analysing the list, you can choose keywords to target so that they can drive search engine traffic to your website.

You’ll want to consider factors like search volume, search intent, SEO competition, and keyword value.

Step 4: Optimise Your Website

The last step is to Optimise your website for the keywords.

This may include including them in your title tags, descriptions, and on your page. It also might mean you need to create an entirely new page.

Why Is Keyword Research Important?

Keyword research is important because it will help you discover valuable keywords that people are actually searching for.

Without validating these keywords, you’ll miss out on large opportunities for search traffic!

So what happens if you don’t do proper keyword research?

First, you could waste a lot of time and resources targeting keywords that are too competitive to rank for.

Or the keywords that you target might not send you enough traffic to be worthwhile.

You may also find that keywords that you are targeting don’t convert into paying customers, or you could lose out on valuable traffic if you overlook certain keywords.

Doing proper keyword research enables marketers to make sure that they get a good return on investment for their SEO efforts.

www.byter.com

On an entry level they work by having 3 basic functions: 

1. Crawling the internet to find new web pages and documents

2. Putting that content in a giant index / database

3. Ranking that content on various factors

We are going to be going into this in a bit more detail now.

Crawling: How Does A Search Engine Crawl The Web?

Search engines discover new content by sending out search engine spiders, or crawlers, to find it.

Crawlers are computer programs or robots that find new content like web pages, PDF files, videos, and images by visiting links on web pages.

These crawlers can visit web pages very quickly which allows them to discover new websites, pages, and other content.

When creating new content, linking to it from existing pages on your site or from another site is a good way to make sure it gets discovered by the search engines.

Crawlers also tend to visit popular websites that create new content more frequently than smaller unknown websites. Getting a link from a popular website could result in your content getting discovered more rapidly

Creating a sitemap also helps search engines crawl your site. A good sitemap will link to every page on your site.

Signing up for a Google Console account is a good step to take if you want to see more data on pages that get Google has crawled. You can also see any crawling errors that may have occurred.

A few issues that might cause pages to not get crawled include poor navigation structure, redirect loops and server errors.

In the past, it was popular to “submit” your site to search engines, but this is no longer needed as they have become much more advanced at detecting new content that is published on the web!

Indexing: How Does A Search Engine Read and Store Website Information?

When crawlers discover new pages and content, they store the information in an index.

You can think of an index as a very large database containing all the web pages on the Internet that a search engine has found.

Search engines will analyse and fetch content from their index when searchers enter a search query.

By default, search engines will crawl and try to index every page on your site that they can find.

However, if you have pages you don’t want web searchers to be able to find through search engines, like private member-only pages, then use can use Robots Meta Tags will help.

You may also want to exclude pages that aren’t useful like tag and category pages in WordPress.

Ranking: How Does A Search Engine Rank Websites?

Search engines use algorithms to analyse websites and decide how to rank them for various search queries.

These algorithms assign scores to various ranking factors and then rank web pages with the best scores from highest to lowest.

Search engine algorithms also change over time in an effort to improve search results. Keep in mind that the goal of search engines is to provide quality content so that their users are satisfied with search results and keep using their search engine.

So what factors do search engines use to determine what content ranks at the top?

We discuss the top ranking factors in the next chapter!

www.byter.com

Have you ever wondered what are the top Google ranking factors that can actually help boost your site and move you up the ranks?

Search engines don’t reveal how they rank exactly but many SEO experts believe that search engines use between 80 – 200 different ranking signals.

We don’t need to worry about all of these rankings, just a couple of these make up the majority of what really produces results.

Where should I focus my effort?

To boost traffic, here are some of the top search engine ranking factors.

Content

To rank high in search engines, you need to have content that ranks and answers the query someone has entered into a search engine. It sounds easy but actually creating the content is often something that it missed. A lot of people try to rank their homepage for every single keyword.

What you want to do, is show search engines that your website is about pages for each service you offer or each product.

Without these other optimised pages, search engines don’t know what you website is going to be about. That’s why having your content optimised is one of the highest google ranking factors.

On-page Optimisation

What you content is ready to fo, you will want to make sure it’s optimised so search engines know what to look for.

The first step is to make sure your keywords sit in your title tag and meta description. A web page’s title tag is the text in the link that shows up on the search engine results page. Another good step is to include your keywords and meta description tags. Writing a description can help convince searchers to click on your link from Search Engine Result Pages.

Look to include your target keywords naturally in the content of the actual web page.

Content Length

The length of your content also affects search engine performance. It’s known that writing content with over 1,600 tends to rang higher than those with shorter content.

Google tends to prefer long-form content that fully addresses the user’s questions. when writing long-form content, you will cover most of the things the user is looking for.

That being said, long content does not always rank better if the searcher’s intent doesn’t match.

Some queries like searches for recipes or quotes might work better with short content as such individuals are likely looking for quick information.

So how long should your content be to optimise search engine traffic?

Well, the content should be long enough so it providers valuable information to the reader.

It’s sometimes of benefit to check out your competition and see how their articles are ranking and you should look to create something which is better than theirs.

Search Intent

Search intent  is another factor to consider. Even if you do everything right to optimise your web page, it still won’t rank if you are targeting the wrong keywords with the wrong content type.

Google tends to rank more articles over product pages generally. If you search right now for “best email marketing software,” you might notice that Google is ranking articles about the best marketing software, as opposed to a product page from one of the top brands.

Google thinks the intent of the search is not to buy software immediately but to figure out which software is best through reviews.

In this case, it would be very difficult to rank your product page for “best marketing software,” and if you wanted to rank for this term, you would want to match the content type that is ranking.

To evaluate search intent, see what types of web pages are currently ranking when you type in a search query.

Keep your content fresh

Content freshness is also a ranking factor. Google provides the freshest / most current content, so keep your up to date.

Inbound Links

Another important ranking factor is links, including links from other websites to your website as well as internal links within your own website.

Links are like votes for your website – If a lot of people are linking to your website, search engines see your website as popular and therefore can rank you higher.

Quantity Of Links

Getting a large number of links to your website is a good thing and can help you rank in the search engines if those links appear to grow at a natural pace. Generating awareness for your brand and publicity will result in other people linking to your site naturally.

You can also get more links to your site by doing email outreach and building relationships with other website owners or even asking for links.

Quality Of Links

Another important factor to consider is the quality of the links you receive. Your website can rank well with just a few high-quality links from high authority sites.

For example, a link from CNN.com would have much more value than a link from your friend’s personal blog. The reason is that CNN already has a ton of inbound links from other sites as is therefore considered an authority site.

Anchor Text

The anchor text  (or link text) can influence your rankings as well. “Anchor Text” is the text that is linked. Anchor text can let search engines know what your webpage is about.

Usability

Another ranking factor that websites should pay attention to is usability and user experience. Websites that are not user-friendly could cause users to get frustrated and even leave, even if the content is good.

Bounce Rate

Have you ever visited a website, realised it’s not what you were looking for and immediately closed the window?

That’s called a “bounce” and in analytics, you can watch your bounce rate to make sure that it’s not too high.

If a visitor comes to your website and immediately returns to the search results page to click on something else, then this behaviour could tell the search engines that your web page is not a result that people want to see.

Page Speed

With today’s fast internet speeds, users are impatient!

If your website loads too slowly, visitors will leave before your site even has a chance to load – which is why having a fast website is increasingly important.

Search engines also like websites that load quickly, so be sure to optimise your website for speed. Slow loading pages frustrate users and cause them to leave.

Mobile-Friendly Design

Mobile search traffic (people searching on their phones) is now outpacing the number of people who search from their desktops. Making sure your website looks good on mobile is very important.

Be sure to test your website to make sure it’s compatible with various devices and web browsers.

Security & HTTPs

SSL are important for websites and help you rank by up to 2-3% better than if you didn’t have one. Secure browsing is particularly important for e-commerce sites that are collecting sensitive data like credit card details.

Conclusion

By focusing on these top Google ranking factors, you can start ranking and getting traffic from Google and other search engines.

Focus on creating great content, getting links, and providing a great user experience and search engines will reward you with the traffic you deserve.

Keep it original and keep it to the point.

www.byter.com

There are many different ways to market a business but one of the most effective ways to do this is by using SEO to improve your ranking on Search Engines, such as Google. Having a high organic SEO will bring you a higher ROI and bring in more leads and sales to your business, what’s not to like about that.

So let’s get down to it, what is SEO and why is it so important? we are going to get down to right now.

What is SEO?

SEO, or search engine optimisation, is the process of optimising a website to get targeted traffic by ranking high in search engines.

The higher you rank in search engines such as Google or Bing the more organic traffic and clicks you will get to your page. One way to do this is by using targeted key phrases.

The majority of links clicked to a page are often due to the page being on the first couple of pages of that particular search engine.

Some facts about this are;

• 30% of searchers tend to click on the first search result on the page
• 15% click on the second result
• 10% click on the third result.
• 2-5% click on the 4-10 positions which is a significant drop.

Marketers need to focus on getting more organic traffic through search engines and also well-targeted traffic that’s interested in the content of the website. We are going to cover some of this now.

So why Is SEO Important?

What did you do before search engines came around? the way you got your information was through newspapers, books, phone books, magazines and other offline tools. Search engines changed the way we get information today and google gets over 3.5 billion searches every day.

As more and more people are looking to move to search engines such as Google and Bing to find products and services, it’s important to rank for those terms that are relevant to your business.

For example; people are searching for ‘Chocolate cake’ on google are likely shopping for a chocolate cake to buy. If your website sells chocolate cake, then ranking on the first page of when someone types ‘chocolate cake’ will bring you lots of organic and targeted leads that are interested in your product.

The free traffic that comes through search engines is vital to growth for a business and this is something you should be looking towards. It does take time and resources to rank your web pages, especially on keywords, but it is worth the effort as you will have an ongoing source of leads in the future.

You want to keep creating more web pages and continue with SEO as this will increase your traffic over time which will allow your business to grow. SEO is one of the highest forms of ROI in the marketing game, so make sure you are putting some time into this.

How does SEO Work?

Want to know how to optimise your website to get targeted traffic from search engines?

We have created a quick overview of the process:

Step 1: Keyword Research

Before creating your SEO Campaign, do your research into keywords and phrases. These are the words and phrases you would type into Google when you are searching for something.

With Keyword research you can find popular keywords that are related to your products and services and that will bring in more leads and traffic for your targeted audience.

Ideally, you need to find keywords that will send targeted traffic to your site and to have enough ‘search volume’ to make it worth your effort.

There are many different tools to help you stay on top of this process, one of these is Keyword Planner which uses the data directly from google.

Create your account, start entering your keywords or phrases that you think would be popular for people to find your product or service. Keyword Planner will find the volume for that search and some related keywords with their volume as well.

It’s best to try a few different types of keyword planning, as this program is designed for google ads and doesn’t provide this for other search engines or long-tail keywords. Do your due diligence and find other tools which will help you discover more keywords

Some other popular keyword tools include:

• KW Finder
• SEM Rush
• Moz 

If you don’t have time for this, then we can be of assistance and help you build a plan to make your SEO successful.

When you have done your keyword research you are ready to move on to the next stage and optimise your content.

Step 2: Content Creation & On-Page Optimisation

The next step is to create the content that you want to rank for. When you plan out your content creation, do a quick search and find out what content is ranking for the keywords you are targeting for. 

One thing you will see is the content that shows up on google and it may be different to what you initially thought. Look for the popular content and make a note of which ones you think you will be able to replicate, make better and put your spin on it.

Make sure your content is unique and high quality as this does affect the way you rank on search engines. Original, high-quality content is going to rank better and create more links and have a better chance of ranking higher.

Therefore, you need to have high-quality content and implement your keywords into this to get the best chance of ranking high.

The Title Tag and Meta Description

The meta title tag & meta description is an important HTML tag, as it tells search engines what your web page is about.

This is mainly what appears in search engine results.

Make sure you optimise your title tags and meta description by including your chosen keywords. Your chosen keywords should also appear on the actual web page at least once and write your content naturally, as all of these comes into play when google scapes your website.

Step 3: Off-Page Promotion and Link Building

After your website and content are all optimised, it’s time to promote that content so you can be found. One important factor which will help you from the start is the number of inbound links to your site.

A link from another site is an approval that your site has good content and this will help you rank higher. The aim is to get high-quality backlinks to your website from trustworthy, reliable sources and this will shoot you up the ranks.

All links don’t count the same, a link from a high authority, such as a Government link would be worth a lot more than a link from a smaller website.

You don’t need to be well known to start getting links to your site. Website owners have a lot of options for getting links to their sites. Some link building tactics include blogger outreach, press coverage and reverse engineering competitor backlinks.

If you want to know more about this, then get in contact with us.

Step 4: User Experience & Conversion Rate Optimisation

Search engines are getting smarter every day and with the addition of AI, it’s only going to get better and better. One thing which they can now track is user experience, so this is something that should be considered when developing your website.

Make sure the navigation for your website works correctly, it is optimised for speed, as if not you will lose visitors affecting your website ranking.

It’s also important to remember that your website should be optimised for mobile, as local searches are conducted mainly through mobile devices and over a range of browsers, so don’t just focus on one key area. It’s about creating lots of little micro-strategies which make a big difference.

Try to avoid having too many advertisements on your site or having an excessive number of pop-ups.

Overall, there are many ways to improve your SEO, this just touches on a few of the main points. We will go over these in more depth with some of our other articles.

Good luck.

The Next Step

Going a step further than the brand awareness and engagement stages of marketing, it’s a good idea to take a look at social media lead generation. Collecting leads on social media has huge advantages. For one, it will aid you in finding people interested in your company, but what’s more, it will ensure you can keep in touch with potential customers.

You might be asking what a social media lead even is? Good question. In fact, let’s take a look at some key terms that will be useful to know before we go any further.

Key Terms to Know

Social Media Lead

A lead is any information someone shares that you can use to follow up with them. This may include names, email addresses, occupations, employers, or any other information that a social media user shares with you.

Social Media Lead Generation

This is simply any activity undertaken on social to collect new leads.

Social Media Lead Nurturing

This includes taking new leads through the customer journey, or as marketers would say: ‘through the sales funnel’.

Social Media Lead Converting

This is the process of turning potential customers into paying customers. Naturally, this is the final stage of collecting social media leads.

Quality or Quantity?

Your specific industry, campaign and goals will all contribute to what can be considered a quality lead. As a good rule of thumb though, quality leads will include useful information and clear signs of intent of engaging with your business. Try to think quality over quantity.

To Facebook and Beyond?

Of course, generating leads can be done most effectively on the platforms being used by your potential customers. As well as having the sharpest tools to collect leads on its platform, Facebook’s 2.45 billion user network stands alone and so is the natural first place to look. But is it the only place? Certainly not. The golden rule here is to ensure you are familiar with the demographics of the different platforms available to you before starting your campaign. Do they line up with your target market?

Let’s now turn our attention to how we can generate more leads on social media.

Tactics to Get More Leads on Social Media

1. Optimize Your Profile 

Make sure you don’t shoot yourself in the foot here. Everything should be in place to collect leads organically. Consider the following as a checklist: 

Contact Information Provided

Supporting customer enquiries is essential, so ensure your contact details are available on your profile.

Call-to-Action Buttons Created

With different platforms offering different profile features, make sure you use the ones that fit your specific goal. Own a restaurant? Make use of a ‘Reservation’ button if the platform has one available and so on.

Link in your Bio Added

Along with the likes of “comment down below” and “don’t forget to like and subscribe”, “link in bio” seems to have been added to the current cultural vernacular. Easily and often taken advantage of on Instagram, try to add a call-to-action so people know why they should click and what they should expect to find.

2. Create Compelling Content

Whether it is brands looking for sales or like-hungry selfies, everyone’s competing for attention on social media. Furthermore, once you factor in diminishing attention spans, your content will have to be as click-worthy as possible. It’s really the only way to collect leads. Think sharp images, sharp copy. With the likes of Shoppable Instagram Posts, just make sure they have a place to click!

3. Create User-Friendly Landing Pages

Great! Someone’s clicked on your link. But wait! You’re landing page is a mess, so they’ve clicked again, but this time straight off. Keep things seamless, relevant, easily scannable and as personal as possible. If forms are vital, pre-fill as much as you can and keep things as unsensitive as possible to reduce the obstacles to completion.

4. Use Social Lead Ads

Facebook Lead Ads

These are pretty much promoted forms, through which leads are collected and synced either straight to your customer management system or to you sales team. Facebook’s retargeting tools are especially handy when it comes to lead nurturing. Just make sure your website has Facebook Pixel installed to facilitate lead tracking and cost measurement.

Instagram Lead Ads

Partially filled in forms (email address, full name…) can all be pre-completed in these ads designed to aid marketers collect information.

LinkedIn Lead Gen Forms

According to Wordstream, the typical website conversion rate stands at 2.35%, whereas the average LinkedIn Lead Gen Form is as high as 13%. Now available as Message Ads and Sponsored InMail, the platform again uses pre-fill sections. What’s more, to help generate leads, LinkedIn Dynamic Ads feature direct call-to-actions.

YouTube TrueView for Action Ads

Loaded with prominent call-to-action buttons linking to a site of your choice, these ads were designed to help advertisers drive a specific action, not least generating leads. Simply select “Leads” as your goal.

Other Options

While other sites such as Pinterest and Twitter, don’t have specific formats for lead ads per se, both platforms offer ad options that can boost social media lead generation.

5. Incentivise Appropriately

People need a reason to share their information with you. Depending on the type of lead you’re after, here are some incentives that could do the trick:

Contests or sweepstakes

These can work especially well when teaming up with a relevant influencer or brand partner. For entry, just ask participants to share whatever information you want to know.

Discount code 

Newsletter sig-up for a discount code. Sounds simple enough. Just make sure you have a strategy in place to convert your newly nurtured leads.

Gated content

Industry depending, the likes of invite only webinars and access to private Facebook Groups provide compelling incentives. The information exchanged, such as emails and job titles, can be invaluable in your marketing and business efforts. There are many great incentives at your disposal along with the aforesaid webinars. How about email newsletters, leadership articles, whitepapers, sales emails or customer content like case studies? Just make sure that whichever route you go down, you always remember to tell customers what’s specifically in it for them.

6. Personalize Your Offer

With a Heinz Marketing study showing that personalized content helps with lead generation more than any other marketing goal, be sure to make the most of the targeting tools available on various platforms. Taking gender as an obvious example, why not run two campaigns for different audiences in tandem, tailoring the message accordingly? As well as pre-filled in forms, LinkedIn Dynamic Ad format takes a user’s name, picture and job title to ensure they can be addressed directly, well worth it when we consider that it results in a 19% higher click-through rate and 53% higher conversion rate than those that don’t.

7. Measure and Refine with Analytics 

Collecting social media leads is all well and good, but you really need to be collecting analytics insights along with them. You can monitor which social platform is the best source for your business, once you’ve set up goals in Google Analytics to track leads on your website. It’s then simply a case of adjusting accordingly. Be sure to keep an eye on social analytics tools to help you identify the type of creative and messaging that perform best.

Whether they know it or not, social media lead generation is part of every marketer’s strategy. To ensure yours stays on the right track, be sure to keep these seven tactics in mind and, as always from the Byter Team, good luck!

www.byter.com

First Things First: What Even is a Chatbot?

A chatbot is a software application used to conduct an on-line chat conversation via text or text-to-speech, in lieu of providing direct contact with a live human agent.

Sounds complicated? Let’s come up with an imaginary example.

Let’s imagine you want to buy some trainers from (the very imaginatively named) Trainer Zone. Ordinarily, you’d go to their website and browse at your leisure until you’d found a pair you’d want to purchase. Well, if Trainer Zone decided to make a bot then you could replace this process by instead simply messaging them on e.g. Facebook. Having asked you what you were looking for, a conversation opens up much akin to an actual in-store experience.

‘But what about things other than trainers’ I don’t hear you ask but will answer anyway…

Want to find out the weather? Need help picking out next week’s groceries? Fancy some financial advice? You’re covered. Weather bots, Grocery bots and Personal Finance Bots all exist and are ready at your convenience. Heck, in China there’s even a bot called Xiaoice acting as nothing more than a friend to over twenty million people. Pretty crazy right? But it’s true, with bots the possibilities are endless.

But Why Make a Bot in the First Place?

Yes, they technology seems impressive enough, but what’s the big deal? Is it really worth a company spending their valuable time and energy on them? In short, absolutely!

For the first time ever, messenger apps are being used more than social networks, so if you want to build a business online, you’ll naturally be drawn to where the people are: inside messenger apps.

As Aaron Batalion from Lightspeed Venture Partners writes:

“Major shifts on large platforms should be seen as opportunities for distribution. That said, we need to be careful not to judge the very early prototypes too harshly as the platforms are far from complete. I believe Facebook’s recent launch is the beginning of a new application platform for micro application experiences. The fundamental idea is that customers will interact with just enough UI, whether conversational and/or widgets, to be delighted by a service/brand with immediate access to a rich profile and without the complexities of installing a native app, all fuelled by mature advertising products. It’s potentially a massive opportunity.”

In short, it comes down to those last two words: it’s a ‘massive opportunity’.

So How Do They Work?

Surely, it’s Artificial Intelligence? That must be incredibly complicated? How on earth can they talk to people and answer questions? I can’t do that myself, can I?

All good questions and in answer to the final one, yes!

There are two types of chatbots. Let’s take a look at each of them now.

Chatbots that function based on rules:

This type of bot is only as intelligent as it is programmed to be, responding only to very specific commands.

Chatbots that functions using machine learning:

This type of bot is far less limited, with its AI enabling it to understand language rather than just commands, thereby becoming increasingly intelligent with each and every conversation it has with people.

What doesn’t change, though, is the fact that companies create each with a purpose, whether that be to facilitate a purchase or answer customer support queries. Either way, it seems the days of ringing up businesses are numbered.

Artificial Intelligence

Some good news…Thankfully, you don’t need to be an AI expert to create a great AI chatbot. It would though be recommended to apply the old adage of not trying to run before you can walk. Try not to over promise on your application’s abilities and even hold off until you’re ready. Anyone with the ability to code can certainly incorporate some level of artificial intelligence into their products, so it might be worth keeping this in mind when listing the ‘required skills’ in your hiring process!

Building Chatbots

Before you delve into the how, you’ll have to take a look at they why. In other words, what problem is your bot going to solve? Once this question has been answered, it’s time to choose which platform your bot is going to live on. Next, you’ll need to set up a server to run your bot from and then decide which service you will use to build your bot.

As Matt Hartman, the Director of Seed Investments at Betaworks, writes:

“The difficulty in building a chatbot is less a technical one and more an issue of user experience. The most successful bots will be the ones that users want to come back to regularly and that provide consistent value.” 

Don’t worry. There’s no gold rush leaving you behind. As is usually the case, it’s worth taking your time and remembering that quality wins in the end.

Time to Join the Chatbot Revolution?

Chatbots are not an entirely new phenomenon. In fact, they’ve been around for decades. It’s only due to recent advancements in artificial intelligence and machine learning that the aforesaid “huge opportunity” has arisen. Whether you’re currently building or wanting to learn how to build a chatbot, as always from the Byter Team, good luck!

www.byter.com

Increasing brand awareness, perception, web traffic and sales. Pretty essential stuff. But which digital marketing route will you be taking to make it happen: organic or paid? Well, before we come to any decisions, let’s take a closer look at what our two options even mean.

Organic Advertising

Essentially, anything that isn’t paid for can be considered organic. If you have a strong grasp of the needs and concerns of your buyer personas, it’s time to get creative and utilise social media to raise your brand awareness amongst your likely target audience.

All clicks generated from the likes of Google without paying for them can be considered organic search traffic. Likely? Well, making sure your site works well on all devices, has all the relevant content and lots of quality inbound links from other trusted websites will go a very long way to ensuring this is the case.

Paid Advertising

As the name suggests, this is when your content appears as a result of paying a publisher such as Facebook, Google etc. Having specified your desired associated search terms and pay-per-click amount, your posts are ready to go, soon to be sitting alongside and looking deliberately like organic results.

Certain ads appear on your social media channels due to the advertiser considering you their target audience, whether that be due to your age, occupation etc.

Organic Pros and Cons

Let’s now take a closer look at our two available routes, by weighing up the pros and cons of each in order to help us make a decision.

Sometimes being as simple as setting up and using a Twitter account, organic marketing is available to all companies no matter their size. However, though you’d think most of the world’s marketing budgets could afford this, what is far more costly is the time required to make it worthwhile. Time on social media, writing blogs, SEO and email marketing unfortunately do all add up. And that’s not even taking into account time spent analysing data from Google analytics, Google search console, your social media scheduling tool, email marketing platform… do we need to go on?

Paid Pros and Cons

With paid advertising comes great control. Whether it be the actual message published, the people who see it, or the time at which they do, paid advertising is far more targeted than its seemingly inferior alternative. Another tick in the pro box for paid advertising concerns its instant results. Once the payment has gone through, paid results sit at the top of users’ search feed.

As you have no doubt guessed though, this doesn’t come cheap and marketing budgets of smaller businesses of course create natural barriers. Perhaps even worse are those companies with the necessary marketing financial stretch, but without the required knowledge of the likes of Google Adwords or Facebook Ads to utilise them properly.

So, if you’ve got a bit of cash to spare, how about a combination of the two? Start organic and then start running the two side-by-side?

Let’s now take a look at when might be considered a good time to use each.

When is Good Organic Timing?

It’s never a bad time to go organic! Of course, for businesses in the real starter stages, waiting up to a year for real leads to open up from social media or organic rankings is pretty unappealing to say the least. However, enough time and persistency can certainly help to snowball things down the line.

When is a Good Time to Pay?

If you have products you want to get rid of quickly, such as during sales periods, then the likes of Google Ads could be a great option. Similarly, new product and brand launches can benefit hugely through paid advertising. Social media ads bring with them brand exposure, which can run concurrently with the Google ads homing in on the people searching the problems you can solve.

Just one thing first though. Although it sounds almost too obvious to say, do make sure your website is live and functioning as it should. You may be surprised at how many companies dip into their marketing budget to sit proudly atop Google’s search lists, with users just a click away from a website that doesn’t convert. As such, test first. And then test again!

Decision Time

Well, when it comes down to it, neither is essentially better or worse than the other. In fact, an effective marketing strategy is created when the two work in tandem. Dipping into the marketing budget can certainly boost your traffic and brand awareness in quick-fire time, but there’s no reason why you can’t then run a more cost-effective organic search marketing campaign in the background.

Ultimately, it’s your business and it’s up to you to weigh up what suits your specific situation best, so as always from the Byter Team, good luck!

www.byter.com

Beauty Basics

From websites selling products or services to those sharing a portfolio of work with potential employers, it’s vital to remember that as many of 38% of people will click off if they deem the site unattractive.

You’re not a professional web designer? Not a problem. Let’s take a look at some tips and tricks you can use when creating a beautiful website.

Four Web Design Do’s

1. Do Use Cohesive Colours and Fonts

Some psychologists suggest that whether a user either accepts or rejects a website is 60% down to colour. Try to stick to two or three carefully colour-guide chosen fonts throughout the site. Remember, even seemingly subtle changes can have a large impact. Let’s take the company ‘Performable’ as an example. By simply changing its call-to-action button from green to red, it saw a 21% increase in sales.

2. Do Use Simple Navigation

Always keep the following statistics in your mind when designing your site:

• 86% of visitors are immediately looking for information about your products.
• 60% of visitors want to find your contact information.

Increasing website sales comes down to ensuring a quick and easy user experience. A clear and concise navigation and search bar towards the top of the page will help to guide your customers to what they’re looking for and what you want to sell.

3. Do Use Certifications and Testimonials

With 85% of users trusting testimonials and product reviews in the same light as personal recommendations, ignore including customer testimonials at your peril. For example, five-starred ratings can increase your conversion rate by as much as 28%. For an added touch, why not try something similar to what the online restaurant ordering system ChowNow have done? Here, customers upload a short video of themselves actually speaking.

Crucially, would you expect your customers to share their financial information on a website without a seemingly flawless level of security? For this reason, make sure to add often overlooked certification logos such as security badges or third-party reviews of your business, proving to new customers the legitimacy of your business. 

4. Do Use Infographics

With people being 80% more likely to respond and interact with visual content, it’s certainly worth considering the general amount of text on your website. Some site content leads itself naturally away from text, such as statistic-driven content which is instead best displayed though the use of an infographic – as much as thirty times more likely to be read in its entirety than a wall of text.

Four Web Design Don’ts

Let’s now take a look at some pitfalls to avoid when constructing a beautiful, sales-increasing website.

1. Don’t Use Too Many Elements

The old adage of less is more applies in abundance here, so be careful with the GIFS, text, videos, pop-up ads and the like, which can quickly become distracting, lowering both time spent on your site and the all-important conversion rates. 

2. Don’t Use Jarring Colour Schemes

As mentioned above, your website’s chosen colour palette is of huge importance. Stay away from bold, headache-inducing colours that don’t complement each other. That’s no way to encourage a customer to stick around long enough to make a purchase.

3. Don’t Use Cluttered Navigation

Another way to boot the customers off your site without lifting a finger is to make things confusing and cluttered. No transactions are made when scrolling through a string of pointless nebulous web pages.

4. Don’t Use Loud Multimedia Set to AutoPay

A loud unexpected burst of audio and video can often do more harm than good. Sure, it’s good to grab your customer’s attention, but in this instance, it’s not the way to go.

In Design They Trust

When people arrive at your website, make sure you’ve got them on your side from the first click. A mixture of cohesive colours and fonts, five-star testimonials, along with a simple layout and uncluttered navigation should not only do that but also keep them coming back again and again.

As always from the Byter Team,

Good luck!

www.byter.com

You’ve heard the story a thousand times. The protagonist embarks on an adventure, makes some new friends, overcomes obstacles and returns home a changed person. In short, the Hero’s Journey.

This classic story structure is shared by stories around the globe from Theseus and the Minotaur to Rocky Balboa and as a result is lodged firmly into our cultural DNA. It was, though, Joseph Campbell, the academic who first coined the term way back in 1949, who provided its original structure:

• The Departure Act: The Hero leaves the “Ordinary World”.

• The Initiation Act: The Hero ventures into the unknown “Special World” and is birthed into a true champion through various trials and challenges.

• The Return Act: The Hero returns in triumph.

A little over half a century later, screenwriter Christopher Vogler released his book The Writer’s Journey, in which he refined Campbell’s three phases by identifying the 12 steps that make it up. 

Though they are not necessarily always carried out beat-for-beat, let’s now take a look at Vogler’s 12 steps in more detail and see how the Hero undergoes inner and outer transformation in each one.

The 12 Steps of the Hero’s Journey

1. Ordinary World (we meet our Hero)

This opening leg sets the stage, showing the Hero’s mundane, relatable reality. It provides the juxtaposition with the strange new world yet to be discovered.

Example: Rocky Balboa working as an anonymous debt collector and underground boxer in downtown Philadelphia.

2. Call to Adventure (the adventure begins)

This stage takes the Hero out of their comfort zone, confronting them with an unignorable problem. The catalyst can take several forms. With the stakes of the adventure set, the gauntlet is thrown down for our hero: will they rise to the challenge?

Example: Dorothy being swept up in a tornado in The Wizard of Oz. 

3. Refusal of the Call (the Hero digs in their feet)

It’s certainly not always a simple case of our Hero putting on their shoes and heading out the door. Often, they require quite a nudge. 

Example: Luke Skywalker initially refusing to join Obi-Wan on his mission to rescue the princess, only changing his mind once he finds out stormtroopers have killed his aunt and uncle.

4. Meeting the Mentor (the Hero acquires a personal trainer)

With the Journeys carrying with them significant dangers far too risky for our as yet unproven Heroes, we are often introduced to a mentor. The mentor ensures our Hero has the tools to carry out their adventure, usually through a mixture of practical training, seemingly limitless wisdom and some, let’s say, carefully chosen words of tough love. Although, the mentor can be something as faceless as a map, preparation for the Hero’s next step is still the case.

Example: Mickey Goldmill in Rocky. The time-worn, but not time-beaten old trainer, who takes Rocky under his wing in preparation for his world title fight with Apollo Creed.

5. Crossing the First Threshold (the Hero enters the other world in earnest.)

The central conflict has been launched, the theme has been established and the characters are developing nicely.

As Vogler writes: “This is the moment that the balloon goes up, the ship, the romance begins, the wagon gets rolling.” Our Hero is ready and there’s no going back.

Example: Stitch crashes on Earth in Lilo & Stitch.

6. Tests, Allies, Enemies (the Hero faces new challenges and gets a squad)

Our Hero has stepped into the Special Word and begins getting to grips with their new reality. Usually one of the longest stages, it makes a prime hunting ground for a series of tests to be passed. In this stage, we often are introduced to aliens, enemies, friends and foes.

Example: In Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, Spencer, Bethany, Fridge, and Martha don’t get off to the smoothest of starts when they bump into a herd of bloodthirsty hippos.

7. Approach to the Inmost Cave (the Hero gets closer to his goal)

The stage is all about the Hero’s approach to the most dangerous spot in the Special World, where the ultimate goal of the adventure is almost always located.

Example: The Death Star in Star Wars. Obviously, use of the words ‘Inmost Cave’ aren’t necessarily literal.

8. Ordeal (the Hero faces his biggest test of all thus far)

Described by Volger as a “black moment” and Campbell as the “belly of the whale”, this eighth stage is by no means fun for our Hero. Their greatest fear must now be faced, bringing with it their biggest test. Survive and they become transformed, and according to Volger, thereby informing every decision they make from then on. Though not necessarily the story’s climax, the Ordeal finally provides the opportunity for our Hero to be worthy of such a title.

Example: Sam carrying Frodo on his back all the way up Mt Doom in The Lord of The Rings, using Samwise Gamgee as the Hero.

9. Reward (Seizing the Sword) (the Hero sees light at the end of the tunnel…)

The “reward” is the object or knowledge of which the Hero has spent the entirety of their journey fighting. The time to reach out and grab them is now!

Example: Dorothy can finally escape from the Wicked Witch’s castle with the broomstick and the ruby slippers.

10. The Road Back (… but that light is a little further away than expected)

We’ve reached the beginning of Act Three. With the reward “in hand”, it’s time to return to the Ordinary World. However, obstacles can and do still arise.

Example: Before Neo can leave the Matrix again, Agent Smith kills him.

11. Resurrection (the last test is met)

Referred to by Volger as the protagonist’s “final exam”, we see if our Hero has “really learned the lessons of the Ordeal”. It’s a stage known for miraculous near-death escapes. Queue the sweet music…

Example: Simba learns that Scar killed his father and throws him off Pride Rock.

12. Return with the Elixir (our Hero has a triumphant homecoming)

… because, finally, the Hero gets to return home. They’ve grown. They’ve matured. All in all, they’re returning to the Normal World a different person, with the “Elixir” won during the journey in-hand.

Example: Proving that some Hero’s Journeys can conclude elixir-less, Peter recalls his Uncle Ben’s words and embraces his role as Spider-Man.

Rigid Rules?

The 12 Stages of the Hero’s Journey were created to help readers dissect a plot by fostering a stronger understanding of story structure. But remember, they’re not a set of handcuffs. As long as your understanding of the basics is sound, feel free to experiment and bend it in ways that defy reader expectations. 

As always from the Byter Team,

good luck!

www.byter.com

Stop. Leave the expensive equipment on the shelves and those workshop sign-up emails unanswered. If your goal is to become a good videographer, it’s about paying attention to a few often-overlooked key details, then getting down to honing your craft.

As twentieth century American author and motivation speaker Jim Rohn put it, “success is neither magical nor mysterious, (but instead) the natural consequence of consistently applying the fundamentals.” Whether you’re shooting a higher-end production, or something as seemingly basic as a daily vlog, it’s the video filming basics that will help most to keep you on track.

Let’s take a look at 13 timeless tips and techniques to help you in your videography journey.

Smartphone Starting Point

Chances are you own a smartphone. Though often overlooked, they can be a great place to start practicing videography. You can ensure your phone’s kept level by turning on your screen’s overlay grid. Just remember to shoot in landscape and use the back camera for increased quality. If your budget allows, why not buy a reasonably priced gimbal stabilizer, an external microphone and a video tripod, then have a play around. If it’s not enjoyable at this stage, you know what to do.

Shoot Planning

Storyboards are a luxury afforded to you when shooting the likes of short films and commercials. To give yours a professional feel, be sure to add scene sequencing illustrations, which will act as a guide during both the shooting and editing processes. For the shoot specifically, remember to take into account the time of day and natural lighting, along with the specific cameras that are going to be used.

When covering events such as weddings, you’re going to need to know the timeline better than you know your own name. Prepare a shot list (first kiss, cake cutting, etc) and stick to one specifically chosen style.

Good Lighting

As touched upon above, one of the fastest ways to ruin the chances of your videos looking professional is to use the lighting incorrectly. Again, things are somewhat budget depending. If it’s simply a case of lamps and the sun, think of ways they can improve a scene. Always pay attention to the lighting throughout the process all the way back to the original conceptualization. It can literally make or break a scene’s effectiveness.

Simple Backgrounds

Though there are exceptions to the rule which naturally come at a more advanced stage in your development, one of the last things you want is your scene to look cluttered. You need the audience’s eyes focused on your subject(s). Simple, solid-coloured backgrounds such as a wall or bedsheet should do the trick. Just make sure your subject isn’t too far away from it creating an unwanted shadow.

Composition Improvements

The thing that will give you away as a novice quicker than anything is the lack of proper framing and composition. Arrange and allow visual elements to tell your story, whilst changing your camera’s framing to keep everything aesthetically pleasing. It’s sadly not a case of just aiming your camera at your subjects.

The Rule of Thirds

In photography, this is a type of composition in which an image is divided evenly into thirds, both horizontally and vertically, and the subject of the image is placed at the intersection of those dividing lines, or along one of the lines itself. With the subject’s head not in the centre, but instead a little higher, they’re provided with a visual breathing or walking space when facing the sides. When taking over-the-shoulder-shots, it’s a good idea to remain on the same side of two people talking, while having a foreground and a background helps to create depth within a scene.

Proper Camera Placement

When beginners want a close-up shot of their subject, they tend to place their camera right up close, potentially creating unattractive facial distortions and making it difficult to crop out the scene’s edges. Instead, be sure to place your camera a couple of feet away and optically (not digitally) zoom in with your camera lens in carefully, eliminating the likelihood of a pixelated-looking video.

Manual Focus over Autofocus

Make sure to either use the exposure/focus lock on your smartphone or switch your standalone camera to manual focus, then put your own eyes to use. Of course, the autofocus feature has its time and place, but it has the potential to ruin a recording going in and out of focus during the likes of dimly lit scenes.

Opting for a manual focus also brings with it the opportunity to direct your viewer’s attention in more novel ways. By using a rack focus technique, objects can be focused on successively, with a shallow depth field helping to blur everything else out.

White Balance Settings

One way to ensure you’re going to be spending far more time in the editing room than you want is to forget to set the same white balance on all your cameras. Don’t rely on the default settings, as there’s no guarantee they all will have the same default colour temperatures. That way, you’ll be keeping things consistent and professional, while keeping post-production costs at a minimum. Remember, there’s no “perfect” white balance. Let your own intuition take the lead. Just try to keep things consistent.

Expose Scenes Evenly

On a similar note, using more than one camera can result in clips with different exposure settings. The same scene can appear darker in one camera and brighter on the other if you don’t set the same exposure settings, such as your aperture, frame rate and ISO levels. This is why dedicated cine lenses have t-stops, which stand for exact aperture values, instead of the more theoretical f-stop value on regular photography lenses.

For beginners, it may be easier to shoot in controlled settings where you can have the same lighting no matter the time of day and use the same camera with the exposure locked. It may take longer to record, but at least it will save you the headache of correcting your exposure during post-production.

There’s no shame in beginners using just one single camera in a controlled environment with the exposure locked. If you’re forced to shoot outdoors, with sunsets and clouds at play, remember that speed is key. Either way, always keep in mind the need to minimise time spent in post-production where possible.

Add Cinematic Techniques

By applying some cinematography techniques, you’ll really start to take your videography skills to the next level. Remember though, it’s never about using them for the sake of it. Be creative of course but chose them wisely and ensure that they serve your story, keeping in mind the old adage that less is often more.

Keep Things Steady

Steady surfaces and tripods are required to ensure you don’t run the risk of allowing your audience to view your work as nothing more than a home video which makes them want to vomit. Be it panning, a crane shot, or dollying from side to side, keep things steady, only moving your camera when you need to.

Shot Timing

To hold you viewers’ attention successfully, keep in mind the sweet spot is between five to ten seconds per shot. Furthermore, avoiding the temptation to pan or zoom for the first ten seconds should help keep camera movements and recording time to a minimum.

Think Like an Editor

To avoid the stress and frustration of having only one subpar shot of a scene, you’ll want to ensure you have a few “safety shots” keeping your angle and editing options open and the chances of reshoots to a minimum.

As was the case with the start of this article, when it comes to video editing software, it’s advisable to stay within your means. It’s certainly worth getting to grips with a simpler program before you delve into more complicated and, no doubt, more expensive options.

Unfortunately, there are no shortcuts if you choose to undertake a career in videography and want to become a great cinematographer. However, by following these tips and techniques, you should be on your way.

As always from the Byter Team, good luck!

0203 978 8820

Info@byter.com

www.byter.com