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Take a look at what we have been talking about

06 Jun

Hiring the Right Digital Marketing Agency for You

Posted by Emma Stewart

Selecting the right Digital Marketing Agency has the power to transform your business. With expertise in the latest digital marketing trends, a wide range of transferable sector knowledge and an expert suite of tools to execute ‘head-turning’ digital campaigns, it’s easy to see why employing a digital agency is a no-brainer. While it’s impossible to say whether an agency will deliver the results you’re expecting before you take a leap of faith, there are a few things you can do to help you along the way. So, here’s our tips that will help you to find an agency that will work for you. Highlight Your Skills Gap Before you even start looking for agencies, you need to identify the areas in which you need support. This is important so you know exactly the type of suppor...

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01 Jun

SEO Bootcamp: A Masterclass in Link Building

Posted by Emma Stewart

Link Building in a Nutshell We’ve all heard about the importance of building links for SEO. But what actually is link building and how can you leverage your great content to maximise the impact? To put it simply, think of links as a vote. Every time you receive a link to your site from another, it sends a signal to Google (and other search engines) that your site is offering ‘link-worthy’ content to its users. It’s just the same as how talent shows base contestant popularity on the number of public votes they receive. However, as with all things in life, quality outranks quantity. This is where PageRank and Domain Authority come into play. Here at Star Digital, we use Moz’s Domain Authority (DA) to compare our clients’ website authority against their competitors. D...

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23 May

Local SEO: A Definitive Guide to Attracting Local Visitors

Posted by Emma Stewart

Local SEO helps businesses to rank highly in the SERPs for relevant searches around a specific location. So, whether you’re looking for somewhere to eat, a local dog walker or an affordable hotel in London, Google will return a list of relevant local places. But how do you optimise your business for local searches and have your business featured? A successful local SEO strategy is not like your standard SEO campaign and therefore should be treated differently. That’s because Google places more emphasis on several different factors in local SEO, such as Google My Business and local reviews. Google My Business, links, on-page optimisation, citations and reviews play a vital role in laying a strong foundation for local SEO success. With behavioural and personalisation factors con...

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18 May

How Digital is Saving the Art Industry

Posted by Ella Garfield

Despite slowing revenues in the global art market, online sales of art are on the increase – up 15% on 2015 to $3.75 billion. This is highlighting the potential of the online marketplace which has a current market share of 8.4%, according to the recent Hiscox Online Art Trade Report 2017. The report highlights that digital marketing channels are becoming vital to the continued success of the art market, with search engine optimisation, paid search advertising and email marketing all playing a significant role in transforming the industry. Yet it is social media that has taken the leading role of delivering art in front of a brand new and willing audience – the millennials. Despite slow adoption of online technology, the traditional art sellers have started shifting their at...

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11 May

What is PPC? An Introduction to Paid Advertising

Posted by Emma Stewart

“What is PPC?” If only we had a pound for every time we’ve been asked this question! Pay-per-Click (PPC) advertising - sometimes referred to as ‘Online Advertising’ and ‘Search Engine Marketing (SEM)’ – does exactly what it says on the tin. Advertisers, such as Google, Bing and Facebook, auction off ad placements and you pay for every click your advert receives. So rather than waiting to ‘earn’ visits organically, which can be a somewhat lengthy process, you can pay for high quality visitors to your site. Paid advertising helps you get your brand noticed by potential customers. You can beat your competitors to the top of the search results on Google and Bing, or even have your advert appear on your target audience’s Facebook feed. The best news of all - you ...

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09 May

Beginners SEO: 5 Easy Ways to Boost your Website Ranking

Posted by Emma Stewart

The world of SEO (search engine optimisation) can seem complex and mysterious to the everyday human. I mean, apart from us digital geeks, who really has the time to learn each one of Google’s 200+ factors that influence search rankings in its algorithm? But for small businesses, boosting your website ranking to the top of search is necessary to compete in today’s digital landscape. Research shows that the top 5 search results receive 75% of clicks and only 25% of people will click past the first page – crazy, right? However, there’s things every online business owner can do to increase their chances of getting their website to the top. We’ve put together 5 easy things you can do today, to boost your website ranking. 1. Discover Your Industry’s Niche Keywords P...

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04 May

ERP System: Scale Your Shopify Plus Business today

Posted by Emma Stewart

Do you need an ERP system? Shopify Plus is the leading omni-channel commerce platform for small and medium-sized businesses, powering over 377,500 online shops across 175 countries. As brands grow in popularity and their sales increase, many businesses have taken that all important step of implementing an ERP system (Enterprise Resource Planning) that drives greater efficiencies in-house. So, before we get into the nitty-gritty of ERP systems, ask yourself these questions; Are you having trouble keeping up with your site’s order volumes and as a result your customer satisfaction scores are beginning to dwindle? Are you struggling to keep up with inventory levels in your warehouse? Is your finance department taking longer to consolidate and reconcile financial informatio...

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03 May

Upgrade to Magento 2 – A guide for merchants

Posted by Roger Martin

When thinking about an upgrade to Magento 2 it is important to understand what is involved and what advantages upgrading to Magento 2 actually offers. The expected landrush to upgrade to Magento 2 through 2016 and early 2017 has not materialised. The current thinking is that it will happen through Q3 of 2017, as the platform reaches full stability and the developer community has enough experience to manage the upgrades successfully and in an economically viable manner. The Magento platform has always been promoted as the most flexible ecommerce platform in the world, accessible to all due to its foundations as an open source project. Whilst this has been a major strength, the process of moving towards Magento 2 and the focus by the new owners to grow the Enterprise channel and ac...

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28 Apr

SendGrid vs IBM Marketing Cloud: Which is the best Email Marketing Software?

Posted by Emma Stewart

Email marketing is one of the most cost-effective tactics for driving customer engagement, sales and retention. It’s also the preferred communication channel for consumers, with 77% of consumers saying that they prefer to receive permission-based marketing communication via the channel, according to a study by ExactTarget. Here at Star Digital, we’re constantly being asked what is the best email marketing software. While there’s no single solution that fits all requirements, there are some great email marketing solutions that allow you to manage and segment your contacts, create custom email templates and view a suite of insightful reporting that you can use to optimise campaigns. Our resident email expert, Hannah, put SendGrid to the test against IBM Marketing Cloud, to see...

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21 Apr

A guide to adding goal tracking to Magento websites.

Posted by Ella Garfield

Goal tracking on Google Analytics is a vital element for any online commerce business. Through measuring the effectiveness of your site in gaining conversions, marketing teams can see what content converts and what elements need improving. For Magento websites, this goal tracking process is relatively easy to complete. All you need is a google Analytics account, access to your Magento admin area and access to either the html code or a developer. Here’s our simple 3 step guide to setting up Goal Tracking on a Magento site: 1. Add Google Analytics Tracking code to your site The first step in implementing any goal tracking on your site is to add the Google Analytics tracking code generated for your Google Analytics profile. All you need to do is add your Analytics account ID ...

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18 Apr

Move from Magento to Shopify with Star Digital

Posted by Ella Garfield

Upgrade from Magento Enterprise now and get 6 months FREE Shopify Plus licensing. With Magento 1.x end of life scheduled in 2018, customers on Magento 1.x will be forced to decide whether to upgrade to 2.x over the next 12 months. After 2018, Magento 1.x Community and Enterprise customers will no longer receive support, patches or upgrades, so now is the perfect time to consider Shopify Plus. Until the end of June, Shopify Plus is offering 6 months FREE on a two-year contract and help with data migration up to 500k SKUs and 1 million customers*. There is no doubt that Magento is the king of on-premise eCommerce.  Built specifically for developers, it offers tremendous flexibility and extensibility. But SaaS is changing the world, and eCommerce is no exception. Many retailers a...

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