Bristol-based CRM agency Flourish has just turned 20 – and it’s got a fresh new perspective.
As the agency prepares for life beyond its teens, it’s taken stock of the last two decades. Born in Bristol, Flourish quickly established itself as a go-to for direct mail campaigns, winning the likes of Sky, The National Lottery and Chelsea Building Society while still in its infancy. Flourish has since built on that direct marketing heritage, working across multiple channels and industries – and crucially, at all points of the customer journey. At the heart of its success is a belief that every journey – no matter how small – is just as important as the destination. That there is adventure in every journey.
And so, Adventure in Every Journey is born. A fresh proposition for an agency long obsessed with forging lasting relationships and creating meaningful customer journeys.
Executive Creative Director Kim Martin explains how they got there, “We’ve worked with so many incredible brands over the years, in so many industries and channels. No matter what we did and who we did it for the thing that ties them all together is our ability to drive people to take an action. With changes in the market and the increased reliance on first party and zero party data it feels like the right time to formalise our offering. Adventure in Every Journey does that perfectly.”
He adds, “When you’re obsessed with customer journeys, how you get where you’re going is just as important as the end destination”.
Flourish will also launch a refreshed brand to reflect their new positioning and prepare for a new era.
The transformation comes hot on the heels of a remarkable 2023 for Flourish, having seen notable growth and achievements. In the last 18 months, the agency has won numerous clients, including Nissan, Pai skincare and Wonderbly, and seen their usual scope of work expand into channels like TV for both Hey!Broadband and Crisis.
They’ve also welcomed a growing roster of green businesses – EV.Energy, ecoegg and Artemis to name a few.
“The agency’s 20th birthday is a massive milestone for us” said Managing Director Ian Reeves. “We’ve grown up a lot in the last couple decades, and I’m immensely proud of what we’ve become. I’m excited for the future too – with big ambitions to expand globally while changing the industry for the better alongside partners like Email Marketing Consortium, and as part of the Harbour Group.
If you’d like to find out more about Flourish Customer Journey Marketing, or would like to meet the team please get in touch with [email protected].
Greetings from the mysterious world of search engine optimisation (SEO), where achieving online presence might resemble trying to find a needle in a digital haystack. But do not worry! With the help of my beginner-friendly SEO copywriting ideas, your website will rise in the search results faster than you can say “Google it.”
If you believe that SEO is merely a fancy Silicon Valley acronym, let’s take a closer look. Search engine optimisation, or SEO, is the process of making your website as appealing to search engines (such as Google, Bing, and Yahoo) as well as to actual customers who are actually looking for your services. In this sense, copywriting refers to crafting content for your website that not only educates visitors but also persuades them and helps it rank well. Putting the two together? You’ve just turned into a copywriting pro at SEO.
You must first familiarise yourself with keywords. Your potential clients are typing these little jewels into search engines. Keywords are the road map to your wealth of material, regardless of whether your audience is searching for SEO experts or the greatest vegan restaurant in Bristol (hint, hint). However, it goes beyond simply packing them across your website like candy. The secret to drawing both humans and Google bots to your writing is to skillfully include them into your text.
Do some study on keywords before you go out. Determine the terms and expressions that best describe your company’s offerings and the queries of your target market. To choose your perfect keywords, use resources such as Google Keyword Planner or ask yours truly on a discovery call.
Your writing should sound human (which it should), but it should also have the technical polish that attracts the attention of search engines. This entails producing interesting, pertinent, and educational content that seamlessly integrates your keywords. Don’t fill your text with keywords; this isn’t 2005.
Consider the structure of your website as the backbone that holds everything together. Not only do headings and subheadings (H1s, H2s, H3s, oh my!) help readers easily scan your content, but they also serve as indicators to search engines regarding the order in which your information is presented. Your headline gig is your main heading; it should be attention-grabbing and contain your core keyword.
Make thoughtful use of headers to help readers and search engines navigate your material. Every heading ought to be pertinent and contain keywords without being repetitive. The secret is to get search bots and readers both to stay on your page for the duration of the presentation.
Let’s use some linking strategies to take your company to new heights next. Similar to your website’s hidden passageways and trapdoors, internal and external links direct users to helpful material and demonstrate to search engines that you are a well-respected authority in your industry.
Maintaining visitor engagement and building authority are two benefits of a strong linking strategy. In order to maintain readers’ interest for longer, provide internal links throughout your text and link to reliable websites (hey, credibility!).
Stale bread? No thanks. The content of your website is no different. Maintain it current, unique, and new. Both search engines and people enjoy fresh content. Thus, you can maintain a healthy and strong rating by periodically updating your blog or sprinkling case studies across it.
Similar to your favourite soap opera, regular publishing will keep viewers interested. To make sure you’re always offering up the tastiest, most delicious digital material, create a content schedule.
Nobody wants to converse into a void on a digital device. You’re having a conversation rather than just crawling into the void when you use SEO copywriting. Thus, become an expert in SEO-friendly copywriting by making sure your material is readable, valuable to your audience, and scannable. Bold writing, bullet points, and brief paragraphs can draw attention to your pearls of wisdom.
Now that you have the map, it’s time to set off on your journey to reach Search Mountain’s summit. When creating a blog article highlighting the best Bristolian jewels or a ‘About’ page that extols your virtues, keep in mind to carefully consider the keywords you use and the structure you develop. If you are in need of a specialist to guide the way and unlock the infinite possibilities of your website, a discovery call is just a click away. Forward and upward to the highest point in sight!
2024 is now truly underway – and so are Google’s attempts to avoid further legal challenges from the EU regarding how it uses user data. After January’s update on consent management for those serving ads, the next step is a crackdown on advertisers and pushing the adoption of Consent Mode V2.
Consent Mode V2 was introduced in November 2023 as the update to Google’s initial version of consent mode. The first version of consent mode prevents Google from tracking pixels (tags) firing until the user gives consent. It also offered a general model for advertisers to estimate conversions for those users who haven’t consented.
Consent Mode V2 works differently. Rather than not firing Google tags until the user has consented, Google tags’ behaviour now changes, depending on the user’s consent status. This means that tags for users who haven’t consented do not set cookies or share identifying information used for personalised marketing. However, marketers are able to get a better understanding of their site’s overall performance than they would with the previous version.
Many advertisers will have seen the threat of suspensions and inability to use Google Ads’ remarketing capabilities if they do not start sending consent signals alongside their tracking hits. Google Ads accounts have shown warning messages to users with a deadline of March 6th 2024.
Either version of consent mode can be used to send consent signals, but the additional benefits of having more detailed conversion modelling provide marketers with a better understanding of site and channel performance. You’re also given more data for Google Ad platforms that can help optimise campaigns.
There are two things advertisers will need to do to become compliant. Advertisers need to make sure that they obtain consent from users when tracking them on a website or app. They’ll also need to make sure that they seek consent and send that consent data to Google when uploading offline data – something they’ve been able to do since October 2023 if they’re using the Google Ads API v15 or newer.
At Loom, we’ve been making sure our clients have been using consent mode even before the latest updates. For those who are reluctant to start using it solely for the measurement benefits, Google’s warnings will definitely be the last push to ensure that it’s implemented.
These changes are happening concurrently with the phasing out of third-party cookies. Most notably, Google Chrome is phasing out third-party cookies by the end of the year, potentially as early as Q3. However, I’d be hesitant to believe any Google commitments on phasing out cookies, given that in 2021 they said they’d look to phase them out in mid to late 2023.
Third-party cookies, unlike first-party cookies, are ones that are set and can be read by another site, meaning they’re used for personalised marketing purposes. Without the use of personalised advertising capabilities that rely on third-party cookies, marketers will have to increase their first-party data collection, and use this data to target audiences that they may have previously looked to reach by relying on third-party cookies. First-party data can be collected through various methods like gated content, newsletter sign-ups or loyalty programs. These all require the user to submit personal information, such as an email address, which can then be passed to an Ad platform (if the user has given consent to do so) for marketing purposes.
Written by: Lukas Beeler, Data & Analytics at Loom Digital
In order to comply with new legislation surrounding rising expectations with user privacy, Google is now moving towards degrading cookies and shifting measurement and tracking to aggregation models instead. To support this shift to cookieless tracking, Google is now rolling out Consent Mode V2, offering more granular control of data tracking to businesses.
Consent Mode V2 is a feature that enables Google to model for gaps in conversions when people decline cookies on a site. It works by communicating the consent status of a user and automatically updating Google Tags accordingly.
Google has recently revealed that on average, Consent Mode V2 recovers around 50% of ad-click-to-conversion journeys lost due to users declining cookie requests on websites.
If you are primarily using Google ads, you must have the new consent mode implemented to allow for lost conversion modelling and compliance simplification. If you do not have Consent Mode V2 implemented by March 6th 2024, your Ads may no longer be eligible to show in the EEA.
If you’re primarily using Google Analytics for conversion tracking, Consent Mode will still simplify compliance for optional GA4 functions (like remarketing) prior to consent. If requiring consent for Analytics, Consent Mode will allow modelling for lost conversions and pre-enable customers for GA cookieless mode.
In order for the Consent Mode V2 to know what data to send to Google, you need a cookie banner on your site. A cookie banner is also needed to comply with GDPR regulations requiring you to share how you use, handle and process user data on your site.
Besides, a cookie banner is a great way to build trust with your website visitors – by improving user experience, protecting user privacy, and ensuring compliance with global privacy regulations, all while maintaining the ability to collect valuable data – which can help increase your website’s performance.
In order to stay compliant when serving ads, and to ensure that their ads remain eligible, You need to integrate a Consent Management Platform (CMP) into your site.
Step 1: Update Your Google Tag Management Setup
If you’re using GTM, you’ll need to update your container to include the Consent Mode API. This involves adding a new tag configuration for Consent Mode that sets the default consent state for analytics and ads (e.g., analytics_storage: ‘denied’, ad_storage: ‘denied’).
Update your Consent Management Platform (CMP):
You must be using a Google certified CMP. A list of approved CMPs can be found here.
Not using Google Tag Manager or need support in implementing Enhanced Consent Mode V2?
Varn is here to support you if needed. Get in touch today to see how we can support your change over to the new system. Implement the change now to ensure your ads stay live.
Summary
Google Consent Mode v2 is designed with the future in mind, offering a framework that is adaptable to evolving privacy laws and regulations. By allowing businesses to easily adjust their data collection strategies as new laws come into effect, Google provides a proactive tool for maintaining compliance and protecting user privacy. Implementing Google Consent Mode is a proactive step towards respecting user privacy while maintaining legislative compliance.
Welcome to the not-so-mysterious world of search engine optimisation, where your site’s visibility determines whether it is the needle or the haystack in the huge online landscape. To make sense of it all, small business owners and inexperienced webmasters may feel as though they must possess the skills of an enigma codebreaker. But do not worry! I’m here to guide you through the confusing world of SEO audits and make sense of the technical SEO language.
Determining how well your website is optimised for search engines is the essence of an SEO audit. Think of it like a MOT for your car: it checks a variety of components to make sure everything is in working order and maximises the likelihood that Google and its friends will find your website.
Technical SEO: This refers to the specific backend aspects of SEO, such as website security, mobile friendliness, and speed (HTTPS is your friend in this situation).
On-page SEO: Content reigns supreme here. To make sure the material is as appetising as a Sunday roast for the Google crawlers, we’re talking about keywords, meta tags, and appropriate header usage.
Off-page SEO: Although they are less visible, off-page elements like social media signals and backlinks can offer your website the credibility it needs to be among the cool kids in search engine rankings.
By doing this assessment, you can get a detailed breakdown of what you’re doing well and what needs some extra work. The final objective? To improve the SEO score of your website and move up the search results page.
Your website’s credit rating for search engines is comparable to your SEO score. It’s a ranking that indicates how optimised your website is out of 100. The better your site is optimised and the more probable it is that you will appear on Google’s first page—the promised land—the higher your score.
It’s important to keep in mind that this score is merely a general indication offered by SEO tools to help you with your optimisation efforts; it is not an official Google grade. Better visibility and a respectable score go hand in hand, so what is our recommendation? Consider your score and adjust as necessary!
Are you prepared for a basic introduction to SEO success? Let’s get started. The SEO audit is the first thing to do. You may find a lot of tools to help you with this, ranging from more in-depth solutions that can get to the specifics of your website’s SEO health to freemium options like Google’s own Search Console.
After receiving your audit, it’s time to put those suggestions into practice. Make sure your website loads quickly, fix any broken links, and make sure it looks great on mobile devices. Not sure where to begin? BrisTechTonic can help in situations when a little expert elbow grease might be exactly what’s needed.
Now, armed with an SEO audit, let’s discuss essential tips for improving your SEO score. Focus on the following:
Keywords: Use appropriate terms to draw in the right kind of traffic. Not a word that would baffle your grandmother!
High-quality content: Provide content that responds to the inquiries of your users. Visitors are encouraged to stay longer on websites with helpful and engaging content, which lowers the dreaded bounce rate.
Meta descriptions: These brief summaries have the power to entice visitors to visit your website. Consider them the chat-up lines for your website; make them succinct and pertinent.
Backlinks: The foundation of off-page SEO are backlinks. Search engines will view your website as more reliable and trustworthy the more respectable websites that link to it.
Each of these elements forms part of a holistic strategy to start climbing search engine rankings today. Remember, it’s a marathon, not a sprint – SEO benefits build up over time.
I hope that this has been a lovely, relaxing kayak in the shallow end of SEO for those of you who are just starting started. But I can guide you through the depths of this ocean that exists out there. Let’s schedule a discovery call to discuss how SEO may help you realise the full potential of your website. Together, we’ll make sure your website is running smoothly and prepared to win the race for visibility. With BrisTechTonic by your side at every turn, the road to SEO mastery begins here. Thus, why do you delay?
We are excited to share the news that Aimee Talbot will be taking on the newly created role at Varn, Head of Innovation.
As we start to see AI technologies transforming how we all live and work, it’s vital to acknowledge that the landscape of search and SEO will be impacted and will constantly be evolving. We wanted to ensure that Varn remains at the forefront of what’s ahead for our industry and for our clients. This new in-house role is designed to help us and our clients to stay ahead of the AI & innovation curve.
We asked Aimee a few questions, so that we can share what her new role will focus on, and to explore how this will help Varn to shape the future success of our clients. From understanding what’s next, as well as the need to adopt new tools, techniques & processes in order to have visibility online, Aimee shares her thoughts as Varn’s new Head of Innovation…
Absolutely! I’m so excited by my new role, which came about as a result of the many recent developments in search. I’ve been working at Varn heading up the Technical SEO team for over a decade now, during which time SEO has evolved considerably. Some of the more significant transformations in SEO have taken place over the past three or four years, necessitating extensive research and ongoing training in order to stay abreast of industry developments. With the emergence of Google SGE, and an increasing focus being placed on AI, a role dedicated to this innovation in search became imperative. With almost 15 years of experience in Technical SEO and a passion for all things Varn, I was thrilled to be offered this new responsibility.
The role of Head of Innovation at Varn aligns with a fundamental objective outlined in the Varn Vision Statement, emphasising our commitment to spearheading advancements in search technology and leading search innovation. Alongside the introduction of this pivotal role and ongoing efforts to build an internal team dedicated to innovation, we are strategically directing our resources towards four key pillars within this workspace, steadfastly maintaining our focus on these aspects throughout 2024. These main pillars of innovation include the following:
1. Search Innovation: The face of search is ever-developing and has been for many years – but with AI becoming a key driver behind search algorithms and generative search results starting to appear, we’re expecting to see many more changes throughout Search Engine Results Pages in the coming months. Our commitment lies in staying ahead of these forthcoming changes to SERPs. By gaining a profound understanding of these developments, we can strategically assess their potential impact on Google search results and, consequently, on our clients. This proactive approach enables us to align client websites with the latest search advancements and critical ranking factors, ensuring their compliance and optimising their performance in the evolving digital landscape.
2. Technical SEO Innovation: A vital part of our innovation initiative involves the enhancement of our Technical SEO service offerings, internal tools, and the ongoing development of our incredibly talented Tech SEO team. For instance, our commitment to excellence is exemplified through our tailored SEO audits. These audits are meticulously crafted to form a comprehensive search strategy for each of our clients. In alignment with the latest trends in SEO, we consistently refine and expand these audits, allowing us to remain abreast of the latest developments, and promptly adapt to any changes in the dynamic landscape of search engine optimisation – for instance, we have recently added sections to these audits for AI, web accessibility, and more.
3. Market Innovation: Another key focus for the innovation team lies within the wider digital marketing landscape. As an example, we are currently researching and developing new PPC scripts to help our Paid Search team surface additional data from PMAX campaigns. We are also researching and training in new market developments pertaining to automation, AI, machine learning(ML), natural language processing, LLMs and generative AI, to name just a few areas.
4. Ways of Working Innovation: We are continuing to develop our own Python scripts and GPTs here at Varn, in order to streamline and automate internal processes – and not just for small sites that are relatively easy to crawl, we also work with clients whose websites contain 100,000+ pages. This strategic automation empowers our team to allocate more time to SEO tasks demanding a nuanced, manual approach. Simultaneously, we are crafting a suite of internal tools that conduct automated reviews of key SEO elements. These tools are meticulously designed upon a bespoke knowledge base, granting us full control over their analytical processes and scoring mechanisms. Leveraging our extensive expertise, we can evaluate critical SEO factors, expediting data collection without compromising on the quality and depth of insights. This dual approach ensures efficiency without impacting the integrity and inherent value of our insights and experiences.
Remaining at the forefront of industry trends and embracing state-of-the-art technologies is imperative in the world of SEO, particularly in light of recent advancements. With global internet access reaching unprecedented levels, it is prudent to capitalise on this expansive audience potential by leveraging the opportunities presented through search. According to DemandSage, there are currently over 5.3 billion internet users throughout the world (more than 65% of the world’s population) – this number is expected to reach 6.54 billion by 2025. Therefore, expanding your outreach to encompass online users presents a significant opportunity for substantial growth in your potential audience. Remaining at the forefront of search innovation is crucial in unlocking access to this audience, as it plays a pivotal role in sustaining and optimising online rankings and visibility, and is a key part of outperforming your competition.
At Varn, we are passionate about the work that we do, and about delivering results for our clients. By consistently staying ahead of the curve and staying abreast of evolving search trends and patterns, we can expertly craft customised SEO strategies for our clients, ensuring successful and measurable outcomes.
One of the main updates our innovation team are currently focusing on is the development of Google SGE. We have been researching and testing SGE since mid-2023, in order to understand how it works, and how it might impact search results. SGE has been in beta testing since May 2023 and has been live in the U.S. since last August. It isn’t yet live in the UK, although it is expected to be launched here at some point in 2024. This is something we’re really going to be spending a lot of time looking into, and a development that we recommend all clients monitor, as this will undoubtedly change the face of search.
SGE is poised not only to significantly influence the visual landscape of SERPs but also to revolutionise the approach to content creation and optimisation for SEO. The emergence of AI-generated results seems to be pushing traditional organic rankings down these results pages, occupying more prominent space and thereby impacting organic impressions and click-through rates. Acknowledging the transformative impact of SGE, we are investing significant time and effort to fully understand its implications for both current and future clients. Our primary objective is to tailor and adjust our SEO strategies, ensuring clients can optimise their visibility within the dynamic and evolving SGE landscape.
There are a number of key SEO areas related to SGE that I would recommend placing focus on this year, in order to help you stay ahead of the curve. Here’s a sneak peak into the areas I would suggest prioritising over the coming months:
Aside from SGE, AI in general is another key area we all need to monitor throughout 2024. I posted a blog back in November about AI and the future of search, which is worth a read. We are also expecting to see key developments this year in Sustainability, and even more demand on GPTs – Not only out of the box GPTs such as Bard and Chat GPT, but also custom GPTs built on a bespoke knowledge base.
As part of our innovation goals and research efforts, we plan to keep clients and followers in the loop in regards to our latest discoveries. You can keep up to date with our latest innovation developments and find out more about what we’re working on by checking out the Varn Insights and by signing up to our monthly newsletter.
If you have any questions or concerns about innovation developments, or have a topic you think we should dive into as part of our innovation efforts, we would love to hear from you.
Google’s Search Generative Experience (SGE) transforms users’ search experience through generative AI. SGE enables users to ask more detailed questions in search, receive concise summaries of their queries, and have the option to engage in conversational follow-up queries. Currently, SGE is still in Beta and is being rolled out in multiple countries through Google Search Labs.
This article will look at how SGE is trained, focusing mainly on Google’s “Generative Summaries for Search Results” patent. This patent appears to describe the underpinning of SGE and provides insights into how it works.
Google’s SGE is trained on several large language models (LLMs) and has also been specifically trained for search-related tasks. For instance, identifying high-quality web results with associated sources that confirm the information provided in the output. These models work alongside Google’s core ranking systems to deliver helpful and reliable results that are relevant to search-user queries.
LLMs are machine learning (ML) models that excel at understanding and generating human language. LLMs are something that people have now become accustomed to interacting with on a day-to-day basis. Key examples include Chat GPT and Google’s Bard, which are underpinned by powerful LLMs.
LLMs are a form of Generative AI, meaning the AI model can generate something new. They can perform numerous tasks, including summarising, translating, and rendering text.
An LLM is made up of three key components: data, architecture (a neural network transformer) and training. The transformer architecture allows the model to handle data sequences, for example, lines of code or text sentences. Training is where the model learns to predict the next word in a sentence. The model will keep iterating and improving its predictions until it is reliable for generating sentences. Fine-tuning an LLM allows the model to excel at a specific task.
LLMs learn about patterns and language from the extensive data sets they are trained on. They can then create outputs for inputs. For instance, if we give it a string of text “can’t judge a book by its”, it will predict the next word and likely output “cover”.
SGE utilises a number of LLMs, including an advanced version of Multitask Unified Model (MUM), PaLM2, LaMDA and more. All of the LLMs are trained on vast amounts of data. Google uses multiple LLMs in SGE as it enables them to fine-tune the models to users’ unique needs, enhancing the search experience.
Google’s Multitask Unified Model (MUM) has been trained across 75 languages and has already been deployed on Google Search to improve the search experience. For instance, this model has been used to identify related topics in video content even when the topics aren’t directly mentioned.
PaLM 2 is a language model that excels in multilingualism, reasoning and coding. This is because it is trained heavily on multilingual text, large numbers of scientific pages containing mathematical expressions, and many publicly available source code datasets. Like all the others, this model is not limited to use in SGE. Google has also employed this LLM in Bard to enhance its language capabilities.
SGE is also employing Gemini to make it faster for users. Gemini was announced at the end of 2023 and is natively multimodal. Multimodal AI means it can understand and generate data across various modalities, including text, imagery and audio. Google noted they achieved a 40% reduction in latency for users in SGE.
The patent filed by Google in March 2023, named “Generative summaries for search results” was approved on the 26th of September 2023. It appears to be the patent underpinning Google’s SGE. This patent details an approach to using large language models (LLMs) to generate a natural language (NL) summary in response to a query. Meaning that the summaries are created in a way that is easy for a user to understand. The processes outlined in the patent are key to SGE. It covers not only how LLMs are utilised, but also where information could be pulled from to generate these NL summaries.
The patent also outlines how additional context will be considered for each query. This means there will be variability depending on the specific way a query is submitted or the context in which it’s asked. This explains why so many people researching and collecting data on SGE are finding so much variability in what shows up for them on different days or locations.
Additional information stated in the patent that could be utilised:
Google has stated that SGE may have knowledge gaps in certain areas and has, therefore, been designed only sometimes to produce a result if it concludes that it needs more knowledge to answer the query confidently.
Additionally, the patent describes a system where the generated summaries will be evaluated based on the probability that they are both reliable and accurate. Confidence measures will be used to assess the natural language summaries to determine whether or not to produce a summary for a specific query. For instance, Figure 2 from the patent outlines the method and illustrates how confidence measures are implemented.
Furthermore, it is essential to recognise bias when it comes to generative AI. Google has acknowledged that SGE could produce biassed results. Google have stated the following:
“The data that SGE is trained on is based on high-quality web extracted data that can exhibit narrow representations of people or potentially negative contextual associations.” – Google
Google has implemented multiple measures to try to mitigate biased results. For instance, they use adversarial testing in SGE. Adversarial testing “involves proactively trying to “break” an application by providing it with data most likely to elicit problematic output.” (Google). This aims to identify bias and safety concerns in the model and use this information to improve the model.
The SGE Google experiment is an exciting time for generative AI and SEO. At Varn we are constantly monitoring and testing the updates to SGE to ensure our clients can appear within AI generated results. We have recently looked at the overlap between SGE and organic search results and we are continuing to collect and analyse data as SGE evolves.
If you have any questions about SGE, how it works and how it appears to be impacting SEO, please get in touch with the SEO Experts at Varn. We would love to hear from you.
In a time where conscious consumers are demanding accountability, businesses that embrace ethical finance are set to gain a competitive edge. Ethical finance encompasses responsible practices that prioritise both people and the planet. Enter Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG), and its principles guiding financial companies toward sustainability and ethical decision-making.
When it comes to nailing corporate responsibility, this trio navigates the intricacies, so that businesses can thrive financially and contribute meaningfully to a world that’s asking for more ethical leadership.
Understanding ESG is pivotal in decoding responsible business practices. ESG criteria serve as the three pillars supporting sustainable and ethical decision-making within organisations.
First, environmental factors evaluate a bank or finance company’s ecological impact. This pillar assesses a business’ commitment to conservation and eco-friendly practices. Social factors gauge the company’s impact on society, looking at diversity, labour practices, community engagement, and more. And finally, governance factors consider the internal structures, transparency, and ethical standards that guide corporate behavior.
The significance of ESG extends beyond just ethical considerations. It’s a compass that investors and corporate leaders alike can use. Ethical finance companies that align with ESG principles are more attractive to conscientious investors who recognise the long-term value of sustainable practices. ESG factors are also increasingly integrated into corporate decision-making, influencing strategic planning, risk management, and overall business resilience.
PR is about building and maintaining relationships, shaping perceptions, and delivering transparent communication. So as corporate responsibility gains prominence, PR’s role has expanded beyond traditional brand image management to include the ethical dimensions of business practices.
It can shape a bank’s reputation, influencing how it is perceived by the public and stakeholders. When it comes to ethical finance, PR can connect a company’s financial performance with its commitment to environmental sustainability, social responsibility, and robust governance – the key tenets of ESG.
By effectively communicating a finance company’s ethical initiatives, PR can contribute to building trust and credibility. This, in turn, improves stakeholder relations and attracts investors, customers, and employees who align with the company’s values.
Incorporating ESG into PR strategies involves creating narratives that will resonate with the growing demand for ethical business practices. Communicating environmental initiatives is key, as this builds a positive public perception and attracts stakeholders who prioritise environmentally conscious finance companies.
PR for the environmental side of businesses should emphasise sustainability practices and commitment to minimising ecological impact. This might include efforts to reduce carbon footprint, investments in renewable energy sources, or the adoption of eco-friendly loans and other financial services.
Promoting social responsibility within a business might focus on diversity and inclusion initiatives or social impact programmes. PR strategies should highlight the dedication to a diverse workplace, equal opportunities, and examples of actively engaging with the community through impactful social. This can work to boost a finance company’s image and also attract socially conscious investors and consumers who are interested in supporting businesses that make a meaningful societal impact.
Good governance forms the third pillar of ESG integration into PR strategies. This includes transparent business practices, ethical leadership, and a commitment to high standards. PR around governance should focus on internal structures, decision-making processes, and adherence to ethical business standards. This reinforces the message that responsible governance is a fundamental aspect of the company’s identity.
While the integration of ESG into PR strategies can offer substantial benefits, brands still face challenges when it comes to navigating these principles. One significant obstacle is the potential for greenwashing, where companies may exaggerate or misrepresent their environmental or social efforts. This leads to a credibility gap and erodes trust among customers, investors, and other stakeholders. Balancing expectations and ensuring consistency in messaging can pose another challenge, as different groups may have varying priorities and concerns when it comes to ESG practices.
Ethical finance companies should aim to measure and report their ESG metrics in a standardised and transparent manner. However, this can hinder the accurate assessment of a company’s ethical performance. This is because ESG data can be very complex, and there is a lack of universally accepted reporting standards.
However, within these challenges lie opportunities for PR professionals in ethical finance. If you can successfully navigate and address these obstacles, you have the potential to set your brand apart, building a reputation for authenticity and genuine commitment to ethical principles.
The future of ethical finance and PR is full of opportunity. Trends continue to emerge in ESG, and as sustainability and social responsibility become non-negotiables, PR’s role in shaping and promoting ethical finance practices will increase.
Transparency and authenticity will remain of the utmost importance to customers and stakeholders, with PR serving as the storyteller that can align corporate values with evolving societal expectations. We predict that even more integration of ESG into financial decision-making will see PR become a strategic partner in both communicating and actively influencing companies to embrace more ethical practices.
South West-based brand and communications specialist AgencyUK has announced record growth as evolutions in the company’s culture continue to drive unprecedented levels of performance, despite an economically turbulent period for many.
AgencyUK (AUK) achieved record numbers in their 2023 financial results, following two years of cultural alignment and investment in their new Senior Management Team led by founding members Sammy Mansourpour and Amy Stobie. The business has delivered 220% annual growth in revenue for each financial period since January 2020, putting them on track to becoming one of the UK’s largest independently owned agencies.
“Celebrating 16 years is a seminal moment for the whole agency. It really feels like a transition into adulthood. As an established agency business with a team rich in experience, it is in no small part down to our team embracing creativity and new technology. AI and data analytics have made a meaningful difference to our work, by fuelling our creativity and building in new features around advertising campaign performance. This has been instrumental for our clients, particularly those in the B2B space, where we have a particular foothold in the healthcare sector. And we’ve seen the agency grow exponentially because of it,” says Sammy Mansourpour, Managing Director.
In 2021, the Senior Management Team focused on expanding the agency’s client portfolio in the health, life science and pharmaceutical sectors, leading to a record signing of three top-tier new drug development organisations, as well as launching Our Future Health, a nationwide health research programme in partnership with the NHS, which now has over 1.2 million participants across the UK.
The agency now boasts a stronger B2B portfolio making up 50% of its revenue. The remaining 50% houses well-known food, drink, health and wellbeing brands, including beloved sweet brand Chewits, currently enjoying a renaissance since our amplified brand campaigns and award-winning work across social media.
In response, the agency has expanded its in-house teams by growing its creative department and assembling a new senior management team, recruited from its in-house fast track careers programme. Overall staff numbers have increased by 50% with a further 30% expected to be in place by January 2025.
“We are of course delighted with the performance of the business over the past five years, and we have no doubt that our long-term investment in developing the agency’s culture and staff careers plays a significant part in our success on the bottom line. We welcome turning 16 with open arms,” says Amy Stobie, Director.
The AUK leadership team has embarked on a comprehensive programme of cultural development, sustainability and community outreach. Framed around people, planet and community, these initiatives also form the bedrock of the agency’s commitment to being a certified B Corp since their accreditation in 2021, as well as an award-winning staff development and well-being programme.
Do you know if your SEO activity is working? SEO strategies can be complex to create and implement – and even more difficult to monitor and measure. If you are spending time, resources and money on improving your website for organic search, you need to understand the impact of your activity. Rather than focusing on a single performance indicator, we recommend a weighted approach which considers multiple metrics to give you a broader understanding of whether you are seeing SEO success.
For a clear idea of your SEO performance, consider these seven key metrics side-by-side: domain authority, number of ranking keywords, keyword ranking position, SERP impressions, organic search traffic, engagement rate and conversion rate. Below we explain each in more detail to help you develop a strategic understanding of your organic search performance. But first, it is helpful to have an overview of the process you would expect to go through when improving your website for search engines…
As you make optimisations (whether technical, onsite or offsite) your content will be more likely to be discovered and indexed by Google and other search engines. Indexed content can then begin to rank in Search Engine Results Pages for relevant keywords. If your website is considered by the search engines to be of good quality – for example, having a strong Domain Authority – you will see both the number of keywords being ranked increase as well as those ranking keywords move upwards to higher ranking positions. The quantity of SERP impressions will naturally also increase, as more people begin to see your content within the Search Engine Results Pages. This in turn will lead to higher numbers of clicks through to your website, directly providing higher volumes of organic search traffic. Providing this is high-quality and relevant traffic, you can expect to see the visitors here engage with your website and ultimately go on to complete your chosen conversions, such as making a purchase.
From this overview, you can see why it can take months for optimisations to translate to business KPIs like increased revenue. But once you reach that point, you can expect to receive high-quality and useful traffic. And that is why it is important to track progress indicators throughout the whole process. Now let’s look at our top SEO metrics and key performance indicators in more detail:
Domain Authority is a metric developed by MOZ which gives an insight into the quality of a website, and is helpful for understanding whether your content is likely to rank well for relevant keywords. But it is not the only option; other SEO software’s provide similar metrics which will also give you a sense of how trustworthy your site is considered by Google. For example, “Trust Flow” and “Citation Flow” from Majestic or “Domain Rating” from Ahrefs. Use one or all of these metrics to understand whether your site is considered to be authoritative and good-quality, especially in comparison to your SEO competitors. If you are lagging behind other competitors, improving your Domain Authority should be a key focus to help facilitate further SEO wins. To do this, work on making sure your content fits Google’s EEAT guidelines, and create an offsite content and outreach strategy to attract links from other quality websites.
This is a very useful early leading indicator for SEO activity. As with many of these indicative metrics, the number of ranking keywords does not give you the full picture when viewed alone. Afterall, some keywords may not relate to your most relevant site visitors. Or the rankings for each keyword could be languishing far below the all-important top 10 SERP positions. However, if you are working on a programme of content optimisations on your site and targeting a strategically mapped keyword landscape, an increase in the number of keywords you are ranking for will be one of the very first indicators that your efforts are having a positive impact, as your content begins to be considered by Google for a wider range of relevant topics and terms.
Once your online content is ranking for a good selection of relevant search terms, you can then focus on helping your landing pages to climb through the SERPs to reach higher places. The top spot in Google’s organic search listings will most often receive the highest share of clicks, with positions 2 and 3 also performing well. Remember that exact positions will fluctuate even for individual keywords – however, keeping an eye on the performance of your most important terms and watching these rise through the rankings will help give you a sense of your SEO success. This is also a useful metric to alert you to site issues – if you suddenly see some of your established top ranking positions drop, you will know to start investigating.
Use Google Search Console to check how the number of impressions your content receives changes over time. As your pages climb the rankings for a wider range of terms, you can expect to see more SERP impressions. That is to say, your listings are being seen within Search Engine Results Pages more frequently. This is an important step towards more people clicking through to your content, especially when combined with metadata optimisations to increase CTRs. We recommend looking at impressions from both a site-wide perspective and for specific important landing pages and search queries.
For many people, traffic is the only metric used to analyse the success of a specific digital marketing channel. And that’s because it is important! Use Google Analytics 4 to track the organic search traffic to your website (or to specific key landing pages) to get quick and easy top-level insights into SEO performance. However, it is worth remembering that SEO is a longer-term marketing strategy which can take a while to begin to send traffic to a website, which is why we recommend looking at metrics around keywords and SERP performance as useful lead-indicators when you first embark on search engine optimisation work. Finally, bear in mind that not all traffic is equal – if visitors are landing on your site before immediately bouncing away, or are unable to find the content they are looking for, there is further work to be done!
A useful metric to understand the quality of traffic that is being sent to your website, Engagement Rate in GA4 will tell you the percentage of visitors who arrive on your site and then actually interact with it. This could mean looking at additional pages, triggering a ‘conversion’ event, or spending a significant amount of time looking at content. Engagement Rate is therefore an extremely helpful metric to help you understand whether the visitors you are attracting via organic search are high-quality. This can help you to identify instances where there are mismatches between a visitor’s search intent and the content you are providing. It can also give an indication of the kinds of SEO content that perform best and should therefore be a focus in the future.
Similar to Engagement Rate, looking at Conversion Rate will provide useful information about the quality of the SEO traffic you are achieving. Within GA4, you can choose to allocate specific events as ‘conversions’. Depending on your business priorities, conversions are likely to be purchases, sign-ups or enquiries. Consider Conversion Rate in tandem with Engagement Rate to ensure that your SEO performance is driving high-quality visitors to your website who go on to take the actions which are most important to you.
Having trouble effectively understanding the impact of your SEO strategy? Not seeing the improvements you had hoped for in your organic search metrics? The expert team at Varn can help. Please get in touch to find out what we can do to support your ongoing organic search strategy. We would love to hear from you!