Well, that’s exactly what’s happening right here in the South West! The scientists at Trelonk Wellbeing and the University of Plymouth have been taking crops and plants that have been grown for centuries across our green and pleasant land and putting them to real use; lavender, borage and sunflower (to name just a few) are all being put through their paces in the lab and going on to make a real difference to people’s daily lives.

So where does MiHi come in? Although we probably can’t help you sleep, what we can do is get the word out about this innovative brand. Having previously worked with a London-based agency, Trelonk teamed up with MiHi to build the second iteration of their website, which allows you to understand the right mix of products for you and buy them online.

As with all of our sites, we’ve included plenty of SEO work to enable the brand to reach further, as well as our unique understanding of ecommerce to increase conversion.

We’re looking forward to sampling some of the products in the future, but for now you can take a look at their site here: trelonkwellbeing.com

The post MiHi Digital launches new natural ecommerce website appeared first on MiHiDigital.

Located on the edge of Bodmin Moor, Ekopod is the perfect place to get away from it all and get a little closer to the nature that surrounds us in this part of the world. Having taken over the business in 2017, brother and sister team Matt and Rachael welcome guests from across the country (and even further afield) to stay in their four gorgeous geodomes, two spacious safari tents or their glamping pod (complete with stunning starlight views), all year round. 

Each pod is set in its own private area of the site, so wether you’re looking for a romantic couples break or a fun family holiday, there’s a slice of Cornish countryside with your name on it. Even four-legged friends are welcome to any of their pods and with so much to do in the local area for guests and their dogs, your pooch will enjoy the break as much as you will! 

The perfect Cornwall break for families…

When you and your family arrive at your pod, you’ll be greeted by comfy beds, beautiful bedding and everything you need to relax after your travels. Make sure to help yourselves to the complimentary pack of cookies, fresh milk, cheese, crackers, tea, coffee and hot chocolate too and find luxury toiletries from local business Kitty’s Herbery.

Read more about their family breaks and book… ekopod.co.uk/glamping-for-families

The four-legged friends dream…

If you’re away with your pooch, then the Ekopod site nestled in the stunning Tamar Valley is the perfect area to explore together. There are 75 square miles of Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) surrounding your pod and plenty of dog friendly walks and beaches close by, so you can both roam to your hearts content. 

You can find out more about dog friendly stays… ekopod.co.uk/glamping-with-dogs

The couples romantic Cornish stay…

Do you fancy running away for a romantic getaway? Well, each of the pods at Ekopod are set up to offer the best romantic experiences. With warm baths, large comfortable beds and gorgeous wood burners to keep you and your partner warm with a glass of wine under the Cornish starlight. You’ll have your own private terrace to enjoy your time together overlooking the beautiful Tamar Valley with a BBQ or picnic in the great outdoors. 

Treat your loved ones here… ekopod.co.uk/glamping-for-couples

The ideal getaway for groups…

For all the large family and friend groups out there, Ekopod is the perfect place to get together and enjoy some down time or celebrate an occasion. Each pod may be private, but close enough to enjoy time together, visit local attractions, listening to the sounds of birdsong and gaze up at the Cornish stars. If you need it, your hosts at Ekopod will be happy to assist you with your group booking and any catering required, even organising group activities like morning yoga, to help make your visit stress free. 

Although their ethos is a relaxing break away, Ekopod know some groups like to destress over a few drinks with friends and a party atmosphere. It is expected to respect the local beauty, the site and other relaxing guests. However, you can exclusively book the entire site for a celebration like a special birthday or a hen, so you can enjoy your break without having to worry about affecting the experiences of others staying around you. 

Find out more and book your groups stay… ekopod.co.uk/glamping-for-groups

The post MiHi works with award-winning glamping tourism business appeared first on MiHiDigital.

The trial

The trial is currently only in the San Diego area, and is being specifically used for locksmiths and plumbers. This is because one of the most ‘spammy’ areas in Google is the Google Maps results for locksmiths in San Diego, and a portion of which are, in actual fact, an online scam. You only need to Google ‘locksmith scam’ to discover this fraudulent activity, and also discover that it doesn’t just happen in San Diego. Similar scams are also popping up in sectors like plumbing and roofing, which is why this trial is also targeting plumbers in the area.

Google hopes that this new process will prevent fraudulent plumbers and locksmiths filling up its ads and search results, but if it works it may well spread across different industries and different areas. This ultimately means that one day you may need to complete the verification process for your own business.

The process

The verification process is quite simple; it just requires a small amount of time. Users will need to create a Google My Business account, if they don’t have one already, and fill out some questions. This then leads to a third party called Pinkerton who will ask another series of questions, which should take around 30 minutes to fill out (not ideal but if it stops you losing business to online spammers then it’ll certainly be worth it). Google has confirmed that any information provided to Pinkerton will be confidential, and only used to verify the business.

For now

Right now, as the trial is in a specific area and industry, we’ll just have to wait and see how well it works and if Google will be bringing it to the rest of the world. However, if you haven’t already got a Google My Business account then make sure you get one now – annoyingly you’ll have to wait for Google to send you a postcard in the mail to complete the verification process, but it certainly is worth its weight in gold for your search presence.

The post Google trials new verification tool appeared first on MiHiDigital.

It’s important to highlight the impact this has on user experience. Whilst we’ve all hopefully made the effort to make our sites mobile friendly, less of us will have thought about the pace at which our site loads. Around 40% of people abandon websites that take longer than 3 seconds to load and with more than 80% of people now accessing the internet through their smartphones throughout the course of the average month, it’s more essential than ever that businesses in Devon and Cornwall have mobile-optimised sites.

The opportunity is even greater when we begin to look at Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP), which Google are rolling out in an attempt to make the mobile web even faster and friendlier than ever before.

You may have already noticed AMP pages appearing at the top of your Google search results; they say AMP with a small lightning bolt next to them.

So what are AMP pages?

Accelerated Mobile Pages pretty much do what they say on the tin; they’re webpages which load content almost instantaneously, hence the ‘accelerated’ term. Without getting too technical, AMP pages are unique HTML pages that prioritise speed and a fast experience for users.

They are created in addition to mobile-friendly webpages, and have expanded exposure across the entire Google Mobile Search results page, including e-commerce, entertainment, travel, news, recipe sites and more. Companies already using AMP pages include The Daily Mail, Guardian News & Media, eBay, Disney, Google, LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest and YouTube.

This means, if you’re searching for something relevant to those websites, their AMP pages will appear at the top of the search results, either in the Top Stories area, in shopping results or in a new Live Coverage carousel, which is currently being developed for real-time events such as breaking news, elections and sports.

Although Google says they will not affect search ranking results, businesses with AMP pages will benefit from having their webpages appear first on mobile devices.

So if your website isn’t mobile-friendly, we’d highly recommend updating it before it gets left behind for good!

Give us a call on 01566 232323 or email hello@mihidigital.co.uk to talk to us about a new mobile-optimised website.

The post Google gives greater prominence in mobile search to AMP – does your website have it? appeared first on MiHiDigital.

With 35 – 50% of all small business website traffic now coming from mobile devices the impact on your business could be massive. So one month on, we answer some of the questions we’ve been getting.

So what’s happened?

On 21 April 2015 Google began rolling out their new mobile algorithm, which looked to rank those with a mobile friendly website higher than those without when someone searches from their smart phone.

What exactly is a mobile friendly website?

We speak with many people who believe their site is mobile friendly when it is unfortunately not. All websites will appear on a smart phone, however, as a rule of thumb, if the full width of your website page doesn’t fit onto your screen, or you find that you’re having to zoom in to see things because they’re too small to be legible, your site is not mobile friendly.

If you’re in doubt you can use Google’s testing tool here:

https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly/

How many people actually search from mobile?

The average across all industries is around 35% of site traffic, although we have seen some sites when this figure exceeds 50%.

When you think that half of your potential customers are having a negative experience of your website, it’s plausible to think you may be missing out on large amounts of potential business.

Does this impact all search results?

It’s important to highlight that this change only impacts on those searching Google from their smart phone. Desktop results will remain unchanged as a result of this new algorithm update.

Is it just my home page?

Google’s algorithm will be looking at all of your pages and not just the home page. If you do a lot of blogging and frequently add new content to your site this will be particularly important for you as these pages will be giving you a good level of visibility and ranking across Google.

You’ll want to maintain this visibility on smart phones.

Have we seen the full impact of this change?

Although the algorithm is now 30 days old, Google do take their time so it’s likely the full force of this change will only be realised over the coming months.

However, some sites have already seen significant changes to their rankings as a result of not having a mobile friendly website.

If I get a mobile friendly site, how long will it take to gain its rankings back?

Sites that make changes to improve mobile friendliness should see Google pick up on the changes within days. That said, it will take time for Google’s Web crawlers to index everything.

What should you be doing?

We recommend that if you don’t currently have a mobile friendly website you should seriously consider getting one in the near future. This isn’t because we build websites, but because you could be missing out on potential business each and every day you don’t have one.

 If you’d like to chat through your options, or discuss how this could impact your business please feel free to give us a no-obligation call.

Please do watch your rankings over the next couple weeks and months!

The post Google’s Mobile Update: Your Questions Answered appeared first on MiHiDigital.

Stuffing your pages full of key phrases

So how do you rank for a certain key phrase ( a series of words someone would use to find your website)? You may think the answer is to artificially stuff your page with that word, as many times as possible, to make sure Google knows exactly what your page or site is all about.

You may have even had the misfortune to see this on sites that have a footer (at the bottom of the page) stuffed full of sets of key phrases!

Wrong.

Write naturally about a topic and you will by default include the key phrases relevant to the topic you’re talking about. Think about this page – I’m talking about SEO errors, Google and search engines. By default, I’m therefore going to be including these words as I write.

Don’t try to game the system by stuffing in the same word over and over.

Your visitor won’t like it and neither will Google.

Moving or deleting content and creating broken links

Over time you may move content from one place to another. Some content may even be deleted as it becomes out of date. What this creates is broken links; links that point to a page that no longer exists or has moved. Google doesn’t like this; consider how frustrating it is for your visitor when they click on a link and it comes up with an error. Google feels their pain!

Make sure you go through your site from time to time and check all of your links are working (there’s a plugin that’ll help to do this for you if you’re using WordPress).

Not having a sitemap

Imagine how hard finding an address without a sat nav or a map would be!

A sitemap is a file that tells Google where pages are, and when they’re added. This will enable Google to find your pages quicker and more easily than before.

If you don’t have one you should.

Tell the robots about it

Search engines such as Google find new content and keep their rankings up to date by sending robots called spiders around the web, crawling for new and great content.

On your site should be a little file that tells that robot where to go (this is called a robots.txt file and won’t be seen on your actually website, but should be in the files held on your server).

We’re getting geeky here, but what this should include is a link to the sitemap we’ve mentioned above. You can think of this as giving the search engine spider some tourist information before it explores your site. You’re essentially giving it the map to your site so it knows where to go when it arrives.

Duplicate content

We wouldn’t be impressed if we paid for a magazine only to find that many of the pages had the same information on them. Google won’t be impressed if your site has duplicate content. If you have the same information on many different pages then you’re going to be committing an SEO sin.

Every page should be unique. If they’re not then is there any real need for the content to be duplicated across more than one page?

Page Titles and Descriptions

The page title is the first line of your ranking with Google.

Your page description is the next two lines that appear underneath it.

These should also be unique on every page. Why? Because these two bits of information tell you what the page is about. If every page is unique, then the description and title of the page explaining what it’s about should be too.

Not sure where to find your page title? Hover over the tab at the top of your browser when you’re on a page. Your page title is the words that appear in that tab.

We often see lots of sites with these duplicated across multiple pages. If yours are too, you will be missing out.

Summary:

1. Write naturally and don’t worry about stuffing key words into your copy.
2. Check your site for broken links and fix any you find.
3. Add a sitemap to your website.
4. Refer to the sitemap in your robot file.
5. Don’t duplicate your content or your page titles.

Want to know more about SEO or to get your site reviewed and fixed so it can soar up the rankings? Find out more about our services here or our SEO audit by clicking here. You can also give us a call on 01566 784860.

The post Six Common SEO Mistakes appeared first on MiHiDigital.

Where did David Beckham used to stand when writing on our website?

We’re going to start at the beginning.  Previously search engines held authority at a site level.  It was the site that was important in terms of Google and not the individual writing on the site.
So if David Beckham wrote about football on our site then Google would have seen it as another blog post on the MiHi Digital website.  They’d have said it’s great that they’re adding even more fresh content to their blog but that’s where it stops.
It wouldn’t have recognised that David Beckham the individual was writing on our blog and he’d have got no personal benefit.
Well, actually because it’s Mr Beckham we’d have let him have a link back to his own website for his troubles!

What changes have been made and what happens if David Beckham writes on your site now?

Along came a much-maligned social network called Google+.
With it came something called Google Authorship and headshots began to appear against certain search results across the globe.
They were met with jubilation by the people that implemented them, (reported increases in click through rates by up to 15%) and to a large extent confusion as those that didn’t have them wondered what they were and how they got their own.
Don’t mistake it; this was a big change and it wasn’t just a headshot.
What Google did for the first time was to realise and understand that individuals within certain areas had big followings and were experts in their fields.  With that they wanted to move toward a world where individuals writing on topics in which they had knowledge and expertise were understood as coming from that person rather than just the website they were publishing on.
So lets suggest for a moment that we weren’t the only website that David Beckham had been offered a guest blog post from!
Difficult to believe I know but lets just go with this…
He would write on our blog and many other blogs but Google would then want to understand that it was him writing it, no matter what site he was writing with.
They’d moved the authority from the site toward the individual.
It’s a big change, particularly if you’re an expert in a certain area or blog frequently about a specific topic area, which many people within businesses will be doing.

So where does it appear this is going and what will happen to David Beckham?

This is still early days but as Matt Cutts from Google has said, it appears that individual identity and authorship is going to get more and more important for search and for the internet as a whole.
Going forward Google isn’t going to be burying David Beckham’s content on a website blog, they’re going to know it’s him publishing it and the gravitas of that will flow accordingly.
Interested in learning more about online marketing and how we can help your business?  Why not give us a call on 01566 784860 or email hello@mihidigital.co.uk

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Does the number of Facebook Likes or Twitter Followers you have directly affect your ranking in Google?

Matt Cutts explains that to the best of his knowledge Google does not currently have any mechanism that uses these signals.  In other words the number of followers you have on Twitter or the number of people that like your Facebook page does not directly correlate to a higher ranking in Google.

Why doesn’t it take this into consideration?

Two reasons are given for this:

1. Social Networks potentially blocking Google from crawling their pages

Google crawls the web in order to provide us all with the best and most relevant sites related to our search queries.  One major social media network blocked Google from crawling its pages for around 6 weeks and it sounds like this may well have annoyed Google just a little bit.
They say that their engineers would be reluctant to build advanced systems to crawl those pages when the social network has previously restricted access and could do so at any point in the future.

2. Keeping a pace with changing circumstances on social media

When Google crawls the web it provides the user with a snapshot in time i.e. if Google visit your site today then it will crawl and understand the information and content on it at that specific moment in time.  What they’re saying is that this is imperfect for social media and the results they are able to return for social sites wouldn’t be perfect.
For example, if someone were to block another person or change their relationship status moments after Google had crawled the site then their search results would no longer be insightful, representative or up to date.

But I see sights with big social media presences ranking really well in Google – surely they’re linked?

This is referred to as correlation not causation.
The reasons people like a Facebook page or link to a website article are the same.
For example if you’ve posted an amazing image on your Facebook page then people may well like your post.  Throw that forward to your blog; same amazing image, same result but with people linking to it and sharing it rather than liking it.
At the heart is amazing content; it’ll have a big social media presence for the same reasons people will link to it, but it won’t rank higher because of those social media likes in isolation.

What do you need to take away?

As if we didn’t already know, content is the key, the king and the rainmaker.  By creating content that people will want to share and link to you’ll be creating buzz around your site and ultimately an upturn in your ranking fortunes.
For more information on how we can help you create great content, increase search engine rankings or punch harder with your social media activity please give us a call on 01566 784860 or email hello@mihidigital.co.uk

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Novels or fliers – which will rank more in Google?

The average novel consists of 60,000 – 80,000 words.
The average one page business flier is made up of around 200 – 300 words.
Which do you think would rank for more key phrases in a search engine?
The answer is of course that the item with more content will rank for a larger number of phrases.  It has more words, more content, more areas covered; it’s richer in variety and diversity than the flier.
Throw that forward to your website….
Is your website a novel; a rich tapestry of content for your visitors to enjoy, or a one page flier which was last updated so long ago you can’t remember what month or even year it was last reviewed?
By adding content to your site you’re extending what is known as your search engine tail.
So what comes of having a long search engine tail, of ranking for more and more key phrases?
The simple answer is increased visibility.  The more phrases and areas you rank for the higher the likelihood your site will appear when someone is searching for that phrase or topic area.
Lets give you an example.

Hotels and Events

If you’re a hotel in a certain part of the country or the world then the likelihood is you’ll be setting your website stool up to rank for key phrases that get a lot of searches each month.
That makes sense; find out what people search for in large volume, get to a position where you rank well for it and get the business that derives from it!
But there are more opportunities to be had for you.
What happens if you’ve been blogging about an upcoming event in that location, one that people are likely to be looking for accommodation for?
What’s the impact of that content creation?
When done well, if someone goes to Google that event you’ll start to appear in search listings for it because you’re adding content of value around it.
If they’re already planning to go to the event and they’re looking to stay in the area you’re now getting exposure with engaged potential customers away from your competitors.
And the best thing about it?
It’s a lot less competitive in terms of ranking.
Niche phrases and long term searches (those that include several words) often bring highly engaged traffic and give you an opportunity to develop a brand interaction that otherwise wouldn’t have existed had you not created the content!
So what are you waiting for? Time to go write that content and reap the benefits of your long search engine tail!
For more information on how we can help you develop content strategies and your online reach please give us a call on 01566 784860 or email hello@mihidigital.co.uk

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