In this short video Julie explains the three ways that blogging is a lot like running.

You keep hearing that you should be blogging but it sounds like a lot of effort for just another page on your website that nobody is going to read. You're busy and you have better things to do with your time, like getting more customers, for example.

More and more companies are embracing digital marketing including SEO, PPC and content marketing. However, based on my experience there's a big difference between what digital marketing costs and what people think it costs. In this post I'm going to explore and explain that.

We're all busy. We know customers come first and it's normal to give priority to the people who pay the bills and focus on the work that brings in revenue. However, what if a small investment could make that work much more profitable?

Inbound marketing is the art of attracting potential customers, engaging with them and converting them into leads. It's a structured process which involves careful planning and a long term view.

Google™ uses links to measure the importance or popularity of web pages. This is generally well understood but if you're confused then our what is link building blog post will help.

That aside, Google places important web pages, those with a good link profile, at the top of the search results so it should be clear that having links to your pages helps them get found. In simple terms, popular content, pages with links, rise to the top of search results. Enter the link sellers.

Customer Journey Mapping is used in marketing and customer service to identify how a person navigates the process of moving from being a complete stranger to becoming a loyal customer. It helps organisations look at all the important touchpoints in that journey that can help or hinder progress towards the end goal.

In these days of fake news, filters and photoshop, it is understandable when clients ask if they actually have to tell the truth on their websites, social media accounts and in their inbound marketing campaigns. So, how important is it to be authentic? Is it ever OK to be economical with the truth?

SEO has always had an air of mystery about it. It goes back to the early days when it was possible to improve your rankings in Google by using slightly dodgy tactics. Remember keyword stuffing, invisible text and the numerous meaningless directories that linked back to your site. 

It's that time of year again. The time when, instead of putting the kettle on to avoid the ads, we are actively searching for them, sharing them and talking about them. They stop being an interruption to the main event, and become the main event in themselves.

While we all know that social media is a vital part of your content marketing tool kit, it can be easy to get carried away and rush off in the wrong direction, spending large amounts of time and effort doing the wrong things on the wrong platforms.

Marketing is not an exact science, and it's usually a fairly major slice of your business costs. So if you're not getting the results you want, you need to do something about it, and fast. The great thing about marketing online is that you can measure and change everything, as often as you like. You just need to know what questions to ask.

When you are setting your inbound marketing or social media objectives, one of them may well be to establish your expertise in a particular industry niche, otherwise known as thought leadership. It's not easy but it is possible to achieve if you have enough patience.

Email marketing is still one of the most effective ways to reach potential customers and, more importantly, to provoke a response. Even with decreasing open rates, emails can trigger actions better than most other marketing tools.

Defining your topic is a vital part of your content strategy - without it you won't know what to talk about or how to engage your audience and you can't start to develop a content plan. Here's a video explaining how to figure your topic out.