While the heading and the term ‘dark social’ may sound ominous it isn’t a bad as it sounds. It is something you need to be aware if you’re interested in accurately tracking the traffic to your website and your online published content.

2015 has arrived and presents a fantastic opportunity to assess current digital marketing efforts, determine what’s working and what isn’t and make a plan for the new year. With this in mind, Website Design Centre has collated a comprehensive list of what you need to know about digital marketing into 2015.

You’ve worked hard to establish your brand and your organisation’s reputation but there may be things you are doing, or not doing, that are undoing all your good deeds. We have put together the top 5 things that may be harming your brand and affecting your sales.

Often when we try to explain the importance of local SEO and how it all works – links, rankings, algorithms, citations, social reach, keywords- we see people drifting off, their eyes glaze over and we understand it’s not the most exciting topic in the world, but if you’re a small business you do need to pay attention to this.

Just one thing – the roll out of the Pidgeon Google update since July 2014 has changed the local SEO game –even if you have been ranking well, that might be able to change, particularly for businesses located within a metropolitan area. Now we’ll make easy, all using simple maths.

Just as in the offline world, online – first impressions count so it’s important that you make a good one. Just as importantly is that the online presence you project is consistent – in style, tone, branding and customer service.

From your website, email signatures, online brochures to social media platforms, your online offering needs to offer a cohesion image to your audience – these are both your suppliers, your staff, your customers and your potential customers, staff and suppliers.

Getting readers to your website is just the first step; now you need to keep them there. The longer someone spends on your site the more likely they are to engage and convert into a paying customer but do you understand why people may be clicking off your website?

While SEO works to get people to land on your website, from there it’s the website’s job to get them to navigate through the pages, read blog posts, and complete a form (request a quote, contact us etc).

If you are just starting out in business or just getting your established business online, building your online presence is very important as well as time consuming and a little frustrating. Your online presence is how people in today’s market will find, interact with and build a trusting relationship with your business.

For many small businesses, social media can seem a bit overwhelming and it is. Knowing the ins and outs of all the platforms, understanding the dos and don’ts of promotions, the extra time and money to stay on top of it all, and the list goes on and on. The Website Design Centre team have collated their top 10 social media tips for small businesses to help you determine what you should be doing to leverage social media for your business.

Why would you spend time and money on a Facebook Fan Page when it’s not an online shopping network, and perhaps your business doesn’t even sell online? It’s all about engagement! Facebook is a social network that allows your business to reach wider, build relationships and really engage with your target audience.

Here are the top 9 ways that your business can utilise the benefits of Facebook:

1. Facebook acts like another branch of your business

Your Fan Page can be another branch of your business that’s open 24/7 where customers, potential customers, potential employees, suppliers, networkers, partners and even the media can connect. A Fan Page is public facing by default so anyone can access it regardless of whether or not they are even logged into Facebook – this means that practically everyone on the Internet has access to the information you post here.

2. Facebook drives traffic to your website

Rather than restrict website traffic from your Facebook Fan Page to your business’ website, Facebook actually encourages it – there are no restriction of driving traffic from Facebook to your site.

Perhaps you’ve heard some of the hype surrounding the statement that ‘SEO is dead’. In actual fact, nothing is further from the truth – it’s just changed, that’s all. The fact is that many companies, large and small, have renewed their investment in SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) and here’s why:

SEO still works – despite changes to SEO algorithms the techniques employed to improve your SEO still work. The techniques we have all been applying remain sound.

SEO isn’t going to stop working soon – From the way in which search engines are developing, search engine optimisation is unlikely to stop being effective in any time soon. Traditional text-based content and even video and audio searches all still rely on keywords. And while that link between keywords and searches remains then so too does the success of SEO techniques.