The UK's economy has encountered persistent challenges since the pandemic, intensifying worries for businesses amid uncertainties in the economic landscape, further exacerbated by increases in living costs, material expenses, and the ongoing repercussions of Brexit. However, there are ways to help your business prepare for whatever is around the corner and completing a full marketing audit (assessing all marketing activity, benchmarking effectiveness and developing new st...

Strategic content marketing is the backbone of any successful business. When coupled with a targeted SEO strategy, content marketing becomes a powerful tool for getting your website to rank highly in search engines. Weaving impactful, clearly written content throughout your website goes beyond improving SEO. Unique content creates the personality behind your brand, setting you apart from your competitors. People-led content marketing also humanises your business, allowing customers to see beyon...

Back in June 2022, Hannah joined the Cognique team as our first ever in-house copywriter. A huge enthusiast about all things to do with reading and writing, we chat to Hannah to find out more about life outside of work, her role at Cognique, and what it takes to write great content. What's your role at Cognique? I’m the first and (currently) only in-house Content Writer. I write any and all content that our clients need, which can be really varied. Blog posts, case studies, email marketing �...

After a year at Cognique, we speak to Kim about her first year working agency side, her love of people, storytelling and building relationships.  Have you always been interested in marketing? That’s a very good question and the answer is 'yes' (there’s a bit of a story)! When I was in Year 10 at school, doing my GCSEs I had a business mentor who worked as a Marketing Manager in a local business. It was such a great initiative and I ended up doing work experience with her and just found som...

Investing in our people and their development, is something we continually support. Kim & Amy headed to brightonSEO for two days, their first in-person conference since they joined Cognique last year. Here’s what they got up to in the fun packed city of Brighton… brightonSEO here we come We’d booked our tickets, found an Airbnb with a seaside view, figured out the tube to get across London so we didn’t miss our connecting train. We were ready… As we headed down to Brighton, cracke...

We specialise in providing bespoke website design and digital marketing for OMBs and SMEs. Winners of the Somerset Business Award Small Business Of The Year 2021, we are enjoying a period of business growth. In response to increased client demand, we have recently expanded the marketing team with Marketing Manager, Kim Barnard who oversees the marketing team and Amy Scriven, in the role of Digital Marketing Executive. Combining their skills and enthusiasm will help take Cognique to the next lev...

In May 2020, Mark Zuckerberg announced the launch of Facebook Shops. Since abandoning the development of a stand alone Instagram shopping app in 2018, Facebook has been developing what they claim will be 'a top tier shopping destination'. The Coronavirus pandemic has created a surge in online shopping and in reaction Facebook have brought forward the development of their Facebook Shops platform. So, is it something businesses should be embracing as part of their social media strategy?  What ex...

You've dived into your Google Analytics and you know where your website visitors are coming from and how they find and use your site. You also discover that your bounce rate is really high. Is this a problem and if so, what can you do about it? What exactly is a bounce rate? A website bounce occurs when a user visits your website, views just one page and then exits immediately. They essentially 'bounce' off your website. Your bounce rate is calculated by dividing all single page sessions by all...

Since the UK lockdown, time spent online has increased exponentially. In fact, UK daytime internet usage has more than doubled. Consumers spending more and more time online will, and has, created opportunities for some businesses, notably ecommerce businesses. The key for these businesses is retaining new customers in the short term and beyond the lockdown period.  Email marketing Email marketing is an effective and cost effective channel for retaining new customers. There are a variety o...

In these challenging times, it’s essential that businesses keep talking to their customers; this really is not the time for marketing 'radio silence'. While cashflow may be a concern for many businesses, the great news is that marketing doesn't have to involve big budgets. In fact, there are lots of highly effective and impactful, low cost marketing activities businesses can (and should!) utilise.  Email marketing  Mailchimp offer free email marketing up to 2,000 subs...

Effective website copy which is informative, persuasive and compelling will not only help to convert sales and enquiries, but also greatly assist your SEO efforts. However, in our experience it's often one of the biggest stumbling blocks during a new website project. A combination of resource, time and experience can leave a new website ready to go but with no content.  Who are you writing for? Writing effective website copy is not the same as writing effective print copy. In general, website ...

So you’ve launched your brand spanking new website and it's received fantastic feedback. But does a website have a 'shelf life' and if so, when should you start thinking about developing a new one?Let’s be SMART about itIn principle, the success of a website can be measured against its intended purpose. Was it developed to attract new customers? Is it an eCommerce site that needs to deliver a specific ROI? Maybe it adds credibility to your business or service? Or perhaps it's purely...

“Social media isn’t rocket science and we’ve got a graduate who’s a dab hand with Instagram.” Sound familiar? It's true, social media isn’t rocket science! However, like all marketing activities, it is truly effective when utilised as part of a wider strategy. Whilst the office junior may have a great following on Snapchat or perhaps even be an emerging YouTube star, running, managing and growing social media channels for a business requires planning, quality content and t...

Have you heard about Google’s RankBrain? Here’s why you need to take it into account for your search engine optimisation. What is RankBrain? Many of the details (like much of Google’s operations) are shrouded in secrecy. But since it was revealed in 2015, more information has come to light. Basically, it’s an artificial intelligence machine learning program. It teaches itself and applies its learnings to search results. It first came about (as far as we know) in 2013 when Google were...

Put simply, keywords or key phrases, are what people are searching for in search engines. As a business, they’re important because you want to come up in search engines when people search for the keywords or phrases that are relevant to your products or services. To stand a chance of being near the top of the results, you need to include those words and phrases in your website. For example, if you’re an accountant that specialises in small businesses, you need to have the words “Small bu...

If you've tried content marketing and it didn’t work, try again with these five topics.  What type of content to create With more content online than ever before – you’d think we have reached content saturation. In many ways, we have. Some topics (ironically, the ones that no one wants to read) have been covered to death. No matter how carefully crafted your blog is, if it's on the wrong topic, it goes out in the ether and hardly anyone ever reads it.But, if you want to succeed at cont...