Month: June 2021

Top 5 Reasons Why You Should Enter Business Awards

Peaople clinking their wine glasses in celebration with gold confetti falling down

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Back in 2016, we were delighted to be awarded ‘Highly Commended’ in the Adur & Worthing Business Awards Small Business category. We can really vouch for the power of an award (or even a nomination) in helping a business grow.

With that in mind, here’s our top 5 reasons why we think you should enter Business Awards!

1.    Greater Awareness

Whether you’re a nominee, finalist or even a proud winner of a category – you’re likely receive a high amount of valuable publicity before and after the event, through print, email and social media as well as on the night of the awards ceremony. 

2.    More Sales & Customers

Putting your business forward for an award and as a result becoming a nominee, finalist or winner will boost your trust-worthiness among prospective customers, which can result in increased sales for your business.

3.    Expertise Recognition 

Being seen as a nominee within an awards category reinforces the value and skill you bring to your industry sector. This will give you much deserved recognition for all of your hard work, and will show others what you can offer!

4.    Publicity Opportunities

As an award nominee, finalist or winner, you’ll be able to use your status for PR and publicity purposes. In most cases, you will be given access to use the awards branding on your website and across marketing materials, which will help build trust and awareness with your prospects and target audiences.

5.    Boost Your Staff Morale

Involving your staff at the glitzy awards ceremony gives a huge morale boost, and is also the perfect opportunity to say ‘thank you’ (especially after the last year!). Knowing that they have contributed to the recognition of being nominated or even winning an award is a huge motivator to keep up the good work!

We are delighted to share that we are Media Partners of this year’s Adur & Worthing Business Awards!  The awards, now in their thirteenth year, seek entries from a cross section of businesses who have shown exceptional growth, innovation or an outstanding contribution to the community in which they operate.  

So, if you’re local to the area and know a business or individual that deserves to be recognised, or would like to put your own business forward, why not get involved this year? 2021 entries are now open! Head over to https://awbawards.com to find out more.

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Euro 2020: Teamwork Makes Dreamwork!

A woman filming a football stadium through her SAMSUNG mobile phone

We all know that teamwork makes dreamwork, and that’s especially true for the England team competing in Euro 2020 at the moment. The team worked together to win a European Championship opener for the first time, ever!

This got us thinking about teamwork and how goals and dreams can be achieved when we work with others. So, in this blog we’re sharing our top teamwork tips. 

Set & Define Goals

Start off any project with clear and defined goals (and make sure all of these are communicated to your team). You can do this by creating a mission statement, setting OKRs (objectives and key results or KPIs (key performance indicators). This will help you prioritize your precious time and resources.

Collaborate

You’re only human, and not expected to have all the skills to do everything – this is why Collaboration is key. Work together to share different aspects of your project with your team, highlighting individual different talents, skills and strengths.  

Communicate Regularly 

Open and honest communication is vital to effective teamwork. Members of your team need to feel comfortable to express their ideas and thoughts so you can drive your project forward.

Be Supportive

Always offer help in your team and be supportive when you can, this shows you’re a team player, and who knows, you may need the same in return one day!

What are your top Teamwork tips? Let us know by tweeting us @mbsmih. We’d love to hear from you!

6. Don’t Forget The Little Extras! | In The Know Blog Series – Search Engine Optimization

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Welcome to the final part of this SEO In The Know blog series! 

Finishing this series’ focus of SEO, in our last instalment we’re talking about why you should be using Website Images Meta Tags, Alt Tags, Descriptions, Titles and More!

Lots of little extras on your website all work together to help boost your SEO rankings overall. Are you making the most of them for the best possible results? These can include:

Website Image Meta Tags

Website Meta Tags are small snapshots of text and images that provide a summary for a website page. You may have noticed these before when sharing a link on social media or in a message. It’s important that you ensure yours are always up to date, so your content is accurately represented when shared by others.

Alt Tags

Alt Tags (also known as ‘alt attributes’ or ‘alt descriptions’) are HTML attributes that can be applied to image tags to provide a text alternative for search engines. Ensuring these are filled out can help positively impact web browser  rankings. They are also used to describe the image or what the image is representing to those who are visually impaired or use screen readers. This is a must to ensure your website is inclusive for all. 

SEO Descriptions & Titles

Page titles and meta descriptions are two separate pieces of short HTML code that should be found on every page of the world wide web. Essentially, what they do is tell you the title of the page you’re on and a summary of that page. For a smooth customer web journey, keep these up to date and regularly updated as much as you can.

Thank you for sticking with us for this series. We hope that you’ve found it useful! You can catch up on all instalments here. Stay tuned for another In The Know blog series coming soon in the future!

Good luck on your SEO journey! If you need support, we’re always here. Just get in touch, we’d love to help.

T: 01903 688789 E: makeithappen@mbsmih.com

5. Get Blogging! | In The Know Blog Series – Search Engine Optimization

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Welcome to part 5 of In The Know, our new blog series! 

Continuing with this series’ focus of SEO, in this instalment we’re talking about why regular blogs and website updates are important.

Do you own a business blog on your website? Well, if you don’t – you’re really missing out.

Why Is Blogging Important To SEO?

SEO, in our opinion, is the number one reason to have a business blog. Search Engine Optimisation is about increasing the number of visitors to your website by gaining a high-ranking position in the results page of a search engine (e.g. Google, Yahoo, Bing etc.) These search engines love fresh content! So the more unique, genuine blogs you create, the better. Making your blogs easy to share and including images and videos with keywords and phrases will also help make your content more discoverable.

Blogging helps to drive traffic to your website and therefore, your business. Just think – how did you find this blog today? Interested customers will search for key topics online, for example; In this case you may have searched ‘Why to blog’ or ‘Benefits of blogging for SEO’ and this blog will have come up. This will hopefully then lead to looking at our other blogs, checking out our website, and ultimately considering some of our services.

Keeping your website regularly updated with fresh content is also just as important for the very same reasons. Time to get blogging – and updating!

Come back next week for the final instalment in our series, where we’ll be finishing series 1 with why you should be using Website Images Meta Tags, Alt Tags, Descriptions, Titles and More!

We can help support you with your SEO strategy. Get in touch – let’s make it happen… T: 01903 688789 E: makeithappen@mbsmih.com

4. Boost Your SEO With Social Media! | In The Know Blog Series – Search Engine Optimization

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Welcome to part 4 of In The Know, our new blog series! 

Continuing with this series’ focus of SEO, in this instalment we’re talking about why having a presence on social media platforms can boost your SEO.

If you’re a business owner reading this, you’re likely to use one or more social media platforms for your company. We all know that being active on social media boasts many benefits, including helping attract and gain new customers and increasing your brand awareness, but did you know – having a presence on social media platforms can actually help out your SEO too. Social media profiles are often amongst the top results in search listings for brand names when searched.

How Does Social Media Help SEO?

Although social media isn’t a direct ranking factor for Google, there are ways that social media does help your SEO strategy. The engagement that your social media content receives, including comments, likes and shares all contribute to boosting your online visibility and traffic – the more shares that your social media content receives, the more opportunities people have to see it.

What Content Should I Share?

So, with all that in mind, what social media content should you share to help drive traffic and shares? We would suggest…

  • Blog Posts – write about informative topics linking to your industry or expertise that others will find useful.
  • Videos – whether it’s a behind the scenes video of your company or a reveal of a brand-new product, video content is king.
  • Infographics – create and share infographics as an interesting (and different!) way to share data or survey results.
  • Podcasts – the popularity of podcasts has boomed in recent years, have you ever thought about creating one to share with your audience?

Come back next week for the fifth instalment in our series, where we’ll be revealing why sharing regular blogs and website updates can help improve your SEO.

Want to improve your SEO? Get in touch – let’s make it happen…

T: 01903 688789 E: makeithappen@mbsmih.com