SEO

Why should you optimise for voice search in B2B marketing?

“Hey Google, why should you optimise for voice search in B2B marketing?” If speaking those words led you here, or maybe you asked Alexa or Cortana, then you’ve actually answered your own question, in a sense. Voice search optimisation of business-to-business content is why you’re reading this right now.

What do I mean by that? Why does voice search matter for your business’s marketing? And what steps can you take to make B2B content rank high in voice search results? I’ll tell you in this article.

But first, let’s focus on why voice search is a thing in the first place.

The rise of voice search

Today, more and more people are using spoken queries to find products and services. This has been fuelled largely by two factors:  

• High levels of mobile device usage (smartphones) 
• New ‘smart speaker’ devices and voice assistants 

According to a study from PwC, 65% of consumers aged 25 to 49 years old talk to their voice-enabled devices daily. And another survey from Hubspot found that 74% of respondents had used voiced search within the last month. So, it’s clear that adoption of these individual technologies – smartphones, smart assistants and voice search – have contributed to the rise of them all.  

But there are also some other reasons for the increase in voice search uses, which relate to material realities of life today. 

More reasons people are going hands-free

The COVID-19 pandemic may also have spurred voice search’s uptake. Gartner’s report ‘Optimizing Voice Search and Features for Mobile Commerce’ found that 32% of consumers are interested in hands-free technology that would limit touching or contamination. No typing and swiping, no viral transmission – although we have to wonder if today’s speech recognition technologies have been tweaked to compensate for mask muffling. That’s certainly a catalyst for algorithmic improvement that nobody would have expected pre-2020. 

Also Social Media Today revealed that 52% of people use voice search while driving – which could perhaps be a result of smartphones replacing dedicated sat-nav devices on vehicle dashboards. Enabling people to find what they need while still keeping their eyes safely on the road could be one of the most positive benefits of voice search’s rise. 

Okay, but voice search in B2B marketing?

You may be thinking: “So people are using voice search to find the next motorway service station, or a pizza place open past midnight – that’s great. But it all sounds very business-to-consumer. My customers aren’t all saying ‘Alexa, what’s my nearest Microsoft CSP?’, are they?”  

Maybe they aren’t – right now. But this is a trend that can only grow – and it’s likely to keep growing rapidly. Statista predicts that by 2024, 8.4 billion voice assistants will be in use worldwide. As voice search makes up more and more of the total number of all searches performed, more of those searches will be business-related.  

To prepare for greater volumes of voice searches and capture as much of the current voice search traffic as possible, now’s the time to start making your B2B content rank high in voice search results. Let’s look at how.  

Our voice search optimisation tips

I asked Fifty Five and Five Marketing Executive Charlotte Chan for her top three tips on voice search optimization. Here they are:

Charlotte’s top three

1. Optimise for ‘rich answers’. Voice search results are likely to draw from Google’s Knowledge Graph, Knowledge Panel, Knowledge Box and Featured Snippets. Rich answers use these sources – Featured Snippets in particular – so make sure these elements are optimised.

2. Answer questions concisely. Current best practice is that Google prefers the answers to voice search queries to be short and to the point. In fact the typical voice search result is only 29 words in length. That’s even shorter than this paragraph.

3. Ensure your website is mobile-friendly. Much of your potential voice traffic will be from mobile devices. Therefore, as well as succeeding with voice search, it also needs to meet Google’s criteria for mobile friendliness for it to rank as well as it possibly can.  

I’ve also got some of my own advice for optimising voice search in B2B marketing, which I’ll share now.  

My advice

Focus on conversational keywords. People query search engines in different ways with their voices than with text. That means conversational phrases (e.g., “How do I...”) and long-tail keywords.

Create pages that answer FAQs. People use voice search to ask questions, so creating content with frequently asked questions – and their answers – is the perfect way to capture their search traffic. I used a question keyword in the title of this blog!

Optimise for more search engines than Google. While Google results are used for voice searches via Google (obviously) and Apple’s Siri, other voice assistants may use different sources. Alexa and Cortana use Microsoft’s Bing – so optimise for that, too.  

Time to make yourself heard

I hope this article has helped to illustrate the value of voice search for B2B marketing. It’s still a relatively new field, and it’s sure to evolve considerably as time goes by – so I look forward to exploring new developments in the future.

Meanwhile, if you’d like some assistance in making sure your organisation is being heard by potential customers using voice search, don’t hesitate to get in touch with Fifty Five and Five. We’ll be more than happy to help.

by Martina Greco

What is a Google core algorithm update – and why should you care?

Every so often the world’s content creators and SEO specialists become suddenly impassioned by what’s known as a ‘core algorithm update’. These happen a few times a year and can have a significant effect on a web page’s Google rankings. But what is a core algorithm update? And more importantly – is it really something you should care about?

Algorithms, updates and rankings 

An algorithm update means Google has made a significant tweak to the way they determine search engine result rankings. Admittedly, these can be quite small. But for the world’s biggest search engine, small changes can make a big difference to people who rely on their search engine results pages (SERPs) to generate leads.  

Google algorithm updates happen all the time. In fact, even referring to ‘the Google algorithm’ in the singular it a bit disingenuous – the truth is it’s a complicated web of loosely related algorithms which has been in a near constant state of flux since Google first got going. Keeping track of all that is a fairly tall order, because updates happen virtually every day. Luckily for SEO professionals, most of these are relatively minor and no cause for alarm.  

OK, so what’s a core algorithm update?  

Core updates aren’t just your run-of-the-mill minor adjustments. As the name would suggest, this is a change to the fundamental algorithm that powers the Google search engine. It’s easy to see why these updates happen - if you’re in charge of the world’s most popular search engine, you’re going to want to make sure it responds to changes in how people write, post and read content over time. So far, so understandable.  

The problem is, algorithm updates are a bit like dropping a large fishing net into the middle of an ocean - there's no clear cut line between the content you want to catch and the stuff you'd rather leave where it is.  

That means whenever one of these core algorithms turns up, several well-meaning bystanders tend to get caught in the net. Virtually every core algorithm update comes complete with horror stories of businesses whose rankings change dramatically overnight. It’s also why these updates tend to make SEO folks pretty stressed.  

But how can we tell when a core algorithm update has happened – or even better, when it’s on the way? 

How to spot a wild core algorithm update 

Unlike the smaller everyday updates, core algorithm updates tend to get a lot of attention. Sometimes Google announces them in advance, sometimes they announce it on the day (generally via Twitter), and sometimes they keep it to themselves. The bigger the bombshell, the bigger the publicity and the bigger the splash it’ll make throughout the SEO world.   

If you want to find out what’s changing, it’s helpful to follow the Google Search Liaison account on Twitter, as well as paying attention to blogs like Hubspot and SearchMetrics – (and, of course, Fifty Five and Five…) who are generally pretty quick to spot these changes. 

Sometimes, Google will publish guidance on who these changes are likely to effect and what the ramifications are likely to be. Other times, they prefer to keep tight lipped and see if anyone notices. Their search engine, their rules. Naturally, this makes it pretty difficult to keep up of what changes are coming and when.  

The only definite way to limit the damage of such changes is through regular and thorough SEO auditing. That way, if there’s a big change to the SEO rankings of your content you can quickly see what’s affected, identify the trends and take positive steps to mitigate any damage. But as well as this, the type of content you create makes a huge difference.  

What pandas can teach us about SEO 

About a decade ago, Google decided that they'd had enough of 'content farms'. Such website were filled with realms of low value, keyword-stuffed content that made it onto page one of the search results through black hat SEO trickery - without providing much value to their readers. Google described such content as being "as close as possible to being spam, without actually being spam". An update was clearly in order.  

The idea behind the update, known as Panda, was to make search results better match the intent of their users. But what does that mean in practice? And what can we learn from that almost a decade later? 

Well, imagine you want to find out more about a topic such as, for example, Google core algorithm updates, and type “What is a core algorithm update?” into the search engine. Which of the two following articles would you say best matches your search intent? 

• A detailed breakdown of the context and background to Google core algorithm updates, as well as an explanation as to what it means to you. 

• An article with virtually no relevant information, which just happens to have the words “what is a core algorithm update” strategically placed all over the page to game the SEO rankings.  

Well I hope it’s the first one, anyway.  

The point is, the low-value, keyword-stuffed content might have been successful at gaining a temporary SEO boost, but it wasn’t really what readers were looking when they typed in the search term. Eventually, the rules were always going to catch up.  

Content that stands the test of time 

This game of cat and mouse has been going on since the earliest days of search – and isn’t likely to change any time soon. As long as search engines exist, there will always be people looking to game the system. But content that seeks to fulfill the user’s search intent has consistently managed to stay on the right side of the fishing net, for the clear and obvious reason that it’s precisely the kind of content that Google is trying to promote.  

If you’re writing content that’s genuinely valuable and satisfies the search intent of the people reading it, it’s highly likely you’ll be able to handle whatever spanners the gods of search throw in the works. So, if you want to avoid getting caught out by the latest core update, the one helpful piece of advice is the only thing you can rely on Google to tell you every time an update happens: Write good content.

by Maria Angelino

AMP up your Google Accelerated Mobile Pages in 2019

• Learn how to make the most of Google Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP)
• Getting set up and optimising your website
• The latest functionality, and how to make the most of AMP

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The ever-increasing amount of web traffic from mobile devices means that optimising your mobile site needs to be part of your 2019 marketing strategy. While desktop web browsing still has its place, better mobile browsing is only going to become more important. Today, Google Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) look like the future of mobile browsing.

A faster mobile web

Google AMP is an open source initiative that aims to push higher performance in the mobile web. In other words, faster browsing.

AMP pages show up in Google’s mobile search results, accompanied by a small lightning bolt. It sends out a pretty unambiguous message: ’check out these pages, they’re the fastest’.

But more importantly, the only pages that feature in their ‘Top Stories’ carousel, at the top of their mobile search results, are AMP pages. That’s a very compelling reason to adopt – or, more to the point, not get left out.

But what are the advantages of AMP for individual users? Pages optimised for AMP load far quicker, in a smarter, mobile-centric way, prioritising content ‘above the fold’ (the upper part of a web page that’s visible without scrolling) to appear as quickly as possible, rather than forcing the user to wait for the entire page to load.

You don’t have to be a UX expert to realise that shorter loading times create a better user experience - which means greater engagement and higher visitor retention rates. These are all better for your business.

A study in 2019 by Stone Temple Consulting found publisher sites who optimised their pages by AMP standards achieved a click-through rate that was 23.1% higher click-through rate on Google Search Engine Results Pages (SERP). Meanwhile, e-commerce sites benefited from a 32.1% increase in organic traffic.

Impressive results, we think you’ll agree. And when Google throws its mighty weight behind something, it’s a pretty safe bet that it’s going to be big (with the exception of Google+, perhaps).

If you want to make the most of it and not get left behind, here are some tips for implementing Google AMP:

Getting set up with AMP

If your site uses WordPress, it’s relatively straightforward to begin using AMP. Installing the WordPress AMP plugin gives you access to all the essential functionality.

Now, whenever you make a new post on your site, an AMP-optimised version of the page will be created along with the original. You can see it by adding /amp/ to the end of the original post’s URL.

You may have to make some tweaks to bring the look and feel of the AMP-version more in line with your original site, however. This all depends on how your site was coded.

It’s also a good idea to use plugins like Glue for Yoast SEO & AMP to help make optimise your page for search engine optimisation (SEO).

Not using WordPress? Then you may require a little more work from your developer. Now, you’ll need to ensure two versions of each page are created: the original, and the AMP version. For AMP to work, this new AMP-optimised version can’t contain certain HTML tags. That includes some forms of Javascript, as well as frame functions.

But this isn’t a drawback – it’s just part of what AMP does. It simplifies the page by using a streamlined version of Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) – leaner, faster-loading and better suited to provide a better mobile experience.

Learn the right (and wrong tags)

Although it doesn’t allow certain HTML tags, Google AMP has a selection of its own to replace them, which have become known as AMP HTML. These tags have been specifically created to enhance mobile browsing. So, if you’ll be writing AMP optimised web pages, you’ll need to get to grips with AMP HTML.

But it’s not like learning an entirely new language. Just some new terms. For a seasoned web developer, picking up AMP is a breeze. You can find the basics in this AMP HTML specification guide, which includes a list of prohibited tags, their replacements, and a sample page that’s been formatted correctly.

And if you want to get more advanced, the AMP component catalogue contains a full list of all AMP-specific HTML elements. It even includes experimental functions that are still in beta phase, and it’s updated every time there are new developments.

Check that your code is compliant

There are several good tools you can use to ensure the pages you create are AMP optimised. The best of these come straight from the source: Google.

A good start is to test your web pages during development using Google’s AMP validator. It checks the HTML and tells you where and how to fix it, if it isn’t AMP-optimised.

You can also search for validation errors directly in Chrome. Just open the page in the browser, add “#development1” to the end of the URL, open the Chrome DevTools console and check. And the AMP report on the Google Search Console will show you which AMP pages Google can find and crawl. It will also tell you which ones contain errors to be corrected.

The latest functionality for 2019

As of this year, there’s been a range of new features introduced to make AMP-optimised pages look and work even better. You should definitely consider using these if you want your site to shine as brightly as possible.

One of them is improved video. Users can now watch a video and scroll though the accompanying content at the same time. The video can be minimised and docked in a corner of the screen, where it’ll keep on playing while they continue reading the rest of the page.

It’s now also easier to monetise videos. The <amp-ima-video> component allows you to do this with video adverts from networks supporting the Interactive Media Ads software development kit (SDK). AMP also natively supports a number of video players that can monetise ads, including Brightcove and Dailymotion.

Another update is input masking in forms. This makes it much easier for your users to fill in details like credit card information or their date of birth, because developers can add things like spaces or interstitial characters. When a customer is entering long numbers and other such data on a small screen, on the go, they need all the help they can get.

AMP now supports infinite scroll. When a user gets to the end of a list (e.g. search results or product cards) you can automatically repopulate the list with further items. This is particularly valuable for e-commerce or publishing sites.

Since new data protection regulations became enforceable, we’re all used to seeing the ubiquitous consent prompt on almost every page we visit. Although AMP has long featured the <amp-consent> tag to simplify users’ consent to data collection, the latest improvements also support 3rd party consent management platforms (CMP). A lot of businesses use these, making it a useful feature.

Dynamic email content

A departure from other web-based incarnations of AMP, this 2019 innovation lands in your email inbox instead.

AMP for Email allows you to create highly interactive email content that means you can do things you’d usually have to click away to a web page to do - like buy a product or browse the catalogue. Fewer clicks, better UX and a quicker path to purchase.

That’s only one implementation. The ability to provide this kind of interactivity within an email, in a format tailored for mobile devices, has far-reaching possibilities for your business. Many companies like Booking.com and Pinterest have already adopted it for their consumer-facing emails. It’s worth considering joining them.

A new way to tell stories

One of the most common complaints levelled at AMP by past critics was that it led to repetitive and flat pages, because it omits many elements such as Javascript, which allow developers to create more interaction, movement, texture and a richer experience.

That’s one of the reasons why AMP Stories may be the most significant introduction to AMP this year. It’s essentially Google’s take on the ‘story’ functionality that’s already swept across all the social media heavy hitters like Instagram, Facebook and Snapchat.

Like the rest, it allows you to post a brief video, photo or other visually rich clip. So maybe this is Google jumping on the ‘stories’ bandwagon – but it’s also a new way to present a more vibrant, engaging experience within the constraints of AMP – and it does so in a format that mobile users already know and love.

And, as usual with AMP pages, AMP Stories get priority placement on Google searches. Right up near the top of search results, which is some of the most prime internet real estate. That’s yet another good reason why AMP should be on your radar.

Want to really make the most of AMP?

If you like the sound of all this but don’t know where to start, get in touch with Fifty Five and Five. Our team of web development, design and SEO professionals can help you ensure that your web presence keeps up with the latest innovations and user demands in a rapidly changing, increasingly mobile world.

by Matthew Rooke

A History of Search: Google Algorithm Change Timeline

• Our Google algorithm change timeline outlines the main changes to how Google generates SERPS.
• What effect have these changes had on SEO over the years?
• How is digital content better as a result?

Our recent blog discussed Google’s latest algorithm update, nicknamed Medic. This change ensured that websites containing healthcare and medicine related content were held to a higher quality control standard than other websites. Since these websites gave advice on people’s health and their money, the consequences of false or misleading information are much higher. Therefore, Google reasoned, they’d have to try a lot harder to prove their content was worth the rankings.  

For many, Medic will pass unnoticed. But it’s the latest stage in a long string of changes, enhancements and outright replacements to the core algorithm that got Google started in the late 90s. However unimportant individual changes may seem, all are geared towards enhancing the user experience; ensuring search results are high quality, well-written and well-researched.  

The continuing work of tweaking the Google algorithm has been underway since the early 2000s. Here’s our Google algorithm change timeline to give you an overview of the most important changes.

The war on keyword stuffing 

By 2002, Google had been around for a little while, and people had started to work out how to game the competition. After a few small changes to the algorithm in 2002 and 2003, the end of the 2003 bought the first significant named update – Florida. It was designed to bring an end to some of the more spam-orientated SEO tactics (or ‘black hat’ as they came to be known), that had developed over the previous years.  

This included hidden links, invisible text and most importantly, excessive keyword stuffing. Previously, websites overloaded with search terms would rank well, as Google assumed, they were more relevant to that query. Florida was the first step in the process that penalised websites stuffed with excessive keywords, forcing content creators to write quality, relevant content if they wanted to rank. That was the intention, anyway. 

Ending content farms 

For a little while, Florida was enough to keep the SEO world on their toes and curb the worst excesses of spam content. By 2011, however, the internet had moved on, and another Google algorithm update was needed: Panda. In the words of Google itself, Panda was designed to penalise content that was as close to being spam as possible, without actually being spam.  

Over the past few years, certain types of websites had begun to crop up, which became known as ‘content farms’. As the name would suggest, they specialised in a certain type of ‘thin content’; low-value, spam-like content that gave little value to the user. 

Panda actually had over 20 different versions, because the problem it looked to solve was more complex than one algorithm change could fix. At some point between the first and twentieth update, Panda began to turn the tide against these content farms, and today they’re a dated concept.  

Similar updates from around that time also sought to deal with link malpractice. Since working out that hyperlinks contribute to SEO rankings, the internet had become awash with low-quality, irrelevant links – often in places where they’re not needed and overloaded with keyword optimised anchor text.  

Before the Google algorithm update, the algorithm struggled to differentiate between quality and quantity of links. Afterwards, Google could better make the distinction, ensuring links that were natural, relevant and authoritative were rewarded. 

Understanding semantic meaning

Until 2013, the updates to Google’s algorithms were just that – updates. There may been extras updates added and tweaks made, but the same basic methods that powered searches in the late 90s were still at work in 2013. By now, it was time for a real shake up.  

Not all the problems Google sought to tackle were down to black hat SEO. Much of the time, improvements were made because the algorithm wasn’t clever enough to understand what the user wanted from the search. Much of the time, it would return results that matched on a word-for-word basis, rather than those which actually answered the customers’ queries.  

Hummingbird was perhaps the most important algorithm change since Google launched, arriving in 2013. It allowed Google to begin understanding the user intent as well as the content in search queries.  

Recently, we discussed how keywords were fast declining as a major SEO ranking factor, in favour of content that fully fulfils a query’s semantic intent. Hummingbird was the change that first heralded this.

Mobilegeddon

While Google had been busy eliminating dodgy links and content farms, the remaining outside world had fundamentally shifted the way they search on the internet. The days where sitting down at your computer and typing a query into Google was the default setting were fast declining. By 2015, mobile devices had become more common than web for internet searches. That year, Google sought to change results to better reflect this. 

‘Mobilegeddon’ was the nickname given to an update that significantly penalised websites that weren’t mobile-optimized. If the website couldn’t be rearranged or reconfigured to suit the smaller screen, there’s a good chance that it would fall down the search rankings. Luckily, this only affected mobile searches, so website admins could feel safe that their websites would remain in the same place for web searches. This wasn’t to last long however. Since the introduction of mobile first indexing, mobile-optimised content performs better across searches on all devices.

Better searches, better results, better SEO 

Most of the changes that Google have made to their algorithm since 2003 have been part of the ongoing cat and mouse game with black hat SEO tactics. By about 2014, they’d eliminated most of the loopholes in the algorithm, meaning the many updates over the past have diverted attention towards changes that make a real difference to the quality of search results. The Medic Google algorithm update is just one of these changes, a focused change that increases the quality of results in a small yet significant way. 

There was a time when black hat SEO tactics were frowned upon. Nowadays, they simply don’t work. As with any algorithm, there probably still exists a way to game the system, but these days it’s simply more effort than it’s worth. Now, if website creators want to find themselves at the top of the SERP page, there’s one rule and one rule only that’ll get them there: Write good content.   

As a specialist full-service digital marketing agency for Microsoft Partners, we know everything there is to know about creating content and getting SERP-topping rankings for IT companies. If you want to find out more, get in touch with the team. 

by Matthew Rooke

5 points of emphasis in the new Google algorithm and what that means for your SEO

• The main Google algorithm changes you should focus on in 2019
• How you can adapt your SEO strategy to prepare

Google's search algorithm changes a lot. Since 2000, there have been hundreds of large and small updates (you can view the full list here) that affect whether your content climbs or falls down search engine results pages (SERPs). For marketers, this means a new Google algorithm is always on the horizon.

These frequent and tight-lipped algorithm changes lead to much speculation around how businesses can change their SEO strategy to stay at the top of the rankings. While we never know exactly how the algorithm changes, in this post, we’re going to look at five areas you should pay attention to, to help adapt your SEO strategy accordingly.

1. Mobile-first index

With 60% of searches now performed on mobile devices, mobile compatibility is increasingly important as Google shifts its focus from mobile-friendly to mobile-first. The search giant has already split its search index in two—one for mobile, one for desktop, and announced back in November 2016 that mobile would eventually take priority:

“Our algorithms will eventually primarily use the mobile version of a site’s content to rank pages from that site, to understand structured data, and to show snippets from those pages in our results.”

That time has now come. In 2019, Google will combine the two search indexes into one, which will prioritise mobile when crawling.

2. More focus on Featured Snippets

‘Featured Snippets’ appear above regular results on SERPs (referred to as position #0). So, if you can rank for them, they can provide a serious boost to your click-through rate and site traffic. Featured Snippets take many forms, from lists or reviews to event dates and answer boxes.

Google are going to continue to expand Featured Snippets in 2019, giving more importance to structured data. Structured data is a line of code that you can add to your site’s HTML that can provide Featured Snippets (also known as rich search results). By adding structured data, you can, for example, score an answer box for a common customer pain point in your industry or create a Knowledge Card for a more visually appealing overview of your company.

3. Telling it how it is

Voice search has been one of the biggest growers thanks to AI assistants like Cortana, Alexa and Google Assistant. In the past 10 years, voice searches on Google have grown 3,500%, and 40% of adults now use voice search once per day.

As we can expect this upward trend to continue, this puts further focus on mobile optimisation. But voice search also has the potential to change the structure of search terms. We can predict more ‘natural’ search phrases will come through voice search, as people tend towards asking more fully-formed questions.

It's worth noting that voice search will work hand-in-hand with Featured Snippets moving forward as AI like Google Assistant will read featured snippets aloud as the answer to querying search terms.

4. 'Linkless' mentions

In 2017, Google Webmaster Trends Analyst Gary Illyes suggested that Google can now associate mentions without a physical link. These so-called ‘linkless mentions’ (i.e. positive reviews, testimonies, and other un-linked mentions of your company) will play a factor in SEO.

5. Security-centric

Google admitted a while back that they prefer HTTPS sites in terms of security, and so rank them a little higher. In their recent roadmap, they revealed that in 2019 they will start punishing publishers who fail to add an SSL to their site.

Your new Google algorithm cheat sheet

Remember that the specifics of Google’s algorithm will always remain under wraps. But focusing on these five areas will stand you in great stead regarding best practice SEO for 2019. And make sure to keep up with the Fifty Five and Five blog—we’ll be blogging about any future updates to the new Google algorithm as and when they surface!

Do you need help getting your own content to the top of Google search ranking results? Fifty Five and Five are a full-service digital marketing agency. We combine great marketing with an innate understanding of the Microsoft Partner Network.

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by aidan.danaher

Dimension Data Content strategy and promotion

Dimension Data are a global Information Technology Services firm headquartered in South Africa. With a global annual revenue over $7.5 billion, they help their customers do great things in the digital age. Dimension Data bring together the world’s best technology to help clients grow, compete and serve their customers better wherever they are in the world. The company is especially well known for its use of technology to aid in the conservation of rhinos, and for their support role in the Tour de France.

Expert PPC campaign management

Dimension Data run multiple marketing campaigns each year around their research reports and thought leadership whitepapers. They were looking for a partner to help with strategy and promotion of that content and so engaged with Fifty Five and Five to support the management and execution of their digital media strategies - on the likes of Google AdWords, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.

We now work closely with the Group marketing team at Dimension Data at the planning stages of each campaign, advising on the best channels for promoting their content. We actively manage a raft of paid media campaigns for them, allocating budget, monitoring impressions and clicks, as well as writing copy and designing creative assets.

For each campaign, we provide in depth reports to give them a transparent view of how the budget is being spent and the impact the campaign is having. We are proactive, reallocating spend and rewriting ads on different platforms to ensure the greatest success for each campaign. We make use of our close relationship with Twitter, Google, LinkedIn and Facebook, and can pick up the phone to their reps to resolve any issues and queries.

Our relationship with Dimension Data saves them a significant amount of time when it comes to planning, running and monitoring their campaigns. Our expertise in paid media means their spend is allocated in the most effective way, and we have helped them achieve or exceed their targets for clicks and downloads for all the campaigns we have worked on with them.

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by aidan.danaher