Why I Decided to Start My Own Digital Marketing Agency
I know it's been keeping you up late at night, wondering 'why did Meg decide to start her own digital marketing agency?', so I figured why not share that journey with the 2 people who probably care enough to read this.
I've always loved to write. Ever since I was a kid, my mom would collect my handwritten stories inspired by imaginary worlds and people. My drawings were no Picasso of course, but my words and creativity were impressive for just a six-year-old kid.
My Grandpa's False Teeth never made it to the New York Times Bestseller list, but in my mom's mind she knew something special was taking place. And I guess deep down, so did I.
I remember getting older and writing the speech after being awarded Valedictorian at the age of the 13, I never shared the words with my family as I wanted an element of surprise when I read it out to my peers on the stage. I remember a standing ovation, and my principle getting on stage in shock sharing that I had had no help writing it. That feeling of pride still sticks with me to this day. Call it a subconscious driver for me to continue to share my inner musings with the rest of the world as I transcended into adulthood.
I never thought that following this passion could be a career path for me. Growing up you learn the templates of professions throughout kids’ school books - you can be a fire fighter, an actor (mini Meg's preference), a doctor, a teacher or an archaeologist. Where was the Paid Media Specialist on that list huh, Mrs. Beck?? Fast forward to uni and I find myself studying Cultural Studies and Communications, taking classes on Alfred Hitchcock films and writing 5 page essays about homosexual sub-plots in Bonnie and Clyde. McGill was so cool.
Despite the horror from my parents of picking quite literally the furthest place from home, I found myself on a plane back to Melbourne where I'd completed a semester abroad just a year prior. Shortly after moving I had my first interview at Luxury Escapes, and your girl had landed her very first real adult job as a Copywriter. Needless to say, it was definitely a level up from my recent job baking potatoes at Spudbar.
When using words just didn't feel creative enough anymore, I was excited to find myself interested in the world of social media (you mean someone can HIRE me to do their Instagram?). I had started a small side hustle selling locally made bikinis and creating a brand from scratch just felt so incredibly invigorating. I loved having full control of a creative outlet and it was exciting learning about what my audience liked and didn't.
Whilst the bikinis never turned into something full time, it did lead me to my next career step at Milkbar Digital - a marketing agency that gave me the opportunity to manage the Sportsgirl social media accounts. Wow, a big deal fashion label! It felt a bit surreal walking into their art-clad head office every Tuesday morning for our weekly WIPs. This was a pivotal point in my career that I'm the most grateful for (shout out to Sam Sidney). I felt such pride seeing my written words printed around the stores, connecting with big deal Facebook sales members and attending events with the likes of Steph Claire Smith, a butt that I will never forget looking at IRL.
After a few years of that I moved to Crown Resorts. Whilst the corporate world was not the one for me, I had some really great experiences writing some words for globally renowned restaurants like Nobu, a'Mare and Bistro Guillaume. I even ended up getting an article published on Vogue Online, something that I sort of have to pinch myself about today.
That was a very long-winded way of ending up here, but alas - after 7.5 years in Melbourne, an incredible city that I absolutely adore, I think my inner self was craving some recluse. My partner and I relocated to Dunsborough, Western Australia. I never in a million years thought I would be someone to start my own business but as I started to settle into this new life, with more time to reset and listen to my body - I realised this is where my passion was calling me.
I genuinely love helping brands achieve their marketing goals. I am such a big picture thinker and when I really care about the product at hand, my brain isn't ever stopping to drum up new ideas. I feel the excitement rushing through me as I put together deck presentations about how we can make your brand better, and watching other people get stoked on ideas and results, imagining their brand in a new light, is kinda like a drug to me.
I think ultimately, I realised that after working for other people I want to have more creative control of my work, my brand and build relationships with customers on my own. I want to connect with other people and create working relationships that feel 100% authentic, and 100% me.
So here I am, day one of being my own boss. And I'm pretty fucking excited about it.
Heading 1
Heading 2
Heading 3
Heading 4
Heading 5
Heading 6
- Item A
- Item B
BOLD
The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.
Static and dynamic content editing
A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!
How to customize formatting for each rich text
Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.
If SEO is an abbreviation that makes your brain want to explode, I just want you to know that I’m here for you. S stands for search, E for engine and O for optimisation. Search engine optimisation is essentially a marketing strategy used to ensure that your website shows up as high as possible when people are searching for your products or services. This is achieved through a whole variety of techniques, including the way you structure the images on your site, your site load speed, and most importantly making sure your site hosts the specific words that your customer would be typing into their web searches to find you. While this is typically something that we speak about in relation to search engines such as Google and Bing, Instagram over the last few years has been operating as a search engine of its own kind. Oh yes, it’s true. And of course you want your brand to be showing up there too. After doing some research, I’ve rounded up 5 of the best Instagram SEO tips to help grow your following.
Ever noticed how when you type in something at the top of the Instagram search bar, it doesn’t just come up with suggested accounts or hashtags relating to those terms anymore? No, you’re getting actual PHRASES (ie keywords) for the content you put in there.
Search results will bring up posts about personal trainers even if they have not been hash tagged, meaning we’re seeing a change to the ever mysterious Instagram algorithm yet again. However, this is good news because it means that there is more opportunity to reach new eyeballs even if you forgot to hashtag #dayforit in your Saturday afternoon winery post.
Apparently Instagram considers “a number of factors” when returning search results. This includes the type of content, captions, when it was posted, and more. The spokesperson confirms Instagram uses machine learning to “find the highest quality content that’s relevant to you.”
So, how can you actually apply this to your business? Well, LUCKILY I love ya a lot and I’m happy to share some of my hottest tips for boosting your Instagram SEO so you can start seeing some increased exposure on your posts.
1) Keyword Research
First things first, let’s consider your audience. Who is your customer and what are they looking for when they are searching for your products? For example, if you are a personal trainer your audience might be typing into Instagram, Pinterest, or Google “fitness tips” “how to get strong” “what to eat in a day to gain muscle”- something like that. Hot tip, pretend you were your target audience and literally start typing out some of these ideas that come up in these search engines as this might give you some helpful insights and keywords you haven’t thought about.
2) Keyword Integration in Captions
Now that you have all of that data? Great. Let’s start integrating this into your content strategy, and most importantly in your captions. If healthy recipes were a leading search query, structure your content around this and be sure that every week you include a food-based recipe reel. Lead your caption with these specific search queries and delight your customer with a helpful video tutorial or graphic tile that helps sum up some of the wisdom they’ve come to you to find out!
3) Update Your Instagram Name
A quick fix yet a great opportunity to increase your visibility - make it clear to your customer what you offer. Not just your name, add your services in there too! If possible, update your handle too. For example, if you're a travel Instagram account, why not make it @megstravelstheworld or @travelwithmeg.
You’ll notice in my profile for example, I don’t have Meg McCarthy, but rather my business name and the services I offer. As much as my ego would like to believe otherwise, I don’t think many people would be out there actively searching for my full name. They would however, be searching for things like ‘Digital Marketing Agency’ so this gives me a better chance of showing up.
4) Add Your Keywords to Your Bio
Your bio shouldn’t be a short little one liner. This is a great place to put in the common keywords that were coming up for you when you did your research in step one. For example, your destination for ‘Your fitness tips destination’ or ‘Weekly exercises to help you gain muscle’. Get the idea?
5) Include Keyword-Rich Alt Text
“Alt text” is descriptive text that describes what your photo or video is about for visually impaired users. Screen readers read aloud text descriptions in this section, so it's important that you make this experience as positive as possible to ensure Instagram is an accessible platform for everyone. Without “keyword stuffing” (a bad practice of just trying to pop your keywords in as many times as possible that things stop making sense), if you can include keywords in these descriptions this can also assist in increasing your reach.
.png)
I hope the world of SEO is a little less scary right now, and if you ever need someone to manage your strategy ongoing because you can’t be bothered with it… reach out to me! I love it and I’d also LOVE to help you.
xx Megs
If SEO is an abbreviation that makes your brain want to explode, I just want you to know that I’m here for you. S stands for search, E for engine and O for optimisation. Search engine optimisation is essentially a marketing strategy used to ensure that your website shows up as high as possible when people are searching for your products or services. This is achieved through a whole variety of techniques, including the way you structure the images on your site, your site load speed, and most importantly making sure your site hosts the specific words that your customer would be typing into their web searches to find you. While this is typically something that we speak about in relation to search engines such as Google and Bing, Instagram over the last few years has been operating as a search engine of its own kind. Oh yes, it’s true. And of course you want your brand to be showing up there too. After doing some research, I’ve rounded up 5 of the best Instagram SEO tips to help grow your following.
Ever noticed how when you type in something at the top of the Instagram search bar, it doesn’t just come up with suggested accounts or hashtags relating to those terms anymore? No, you’re getting actual PHRASES (ie keywords) for the content you put in there.
Search results will bring up posts about personal trainers even if they have not been hash tagged, meaning we’re seeing a change to the ever mysterious Instagram algorithm yet again. However, this is good news because it means that there is more opportunity to reach new eyeballs even if you forgot to hashtag #dayforit in your Saturday afternoon winery post.
Apparently Instagram considers “a number of factors” when returning search results. This includes the type of content, captions, when it was posted, and more. The spokesperson confirms Instagram uses machine learning to “find the highest quality content that’s relevant to you.”
So, how can you actually apply this to your business? Well, LUCKILY I love ya a lot and I’m happy to share some of my hottest tips for boosting your Instagram SEO so you can start seeing some increased exposure on your posts.
1) Keyword Research
First things first, let’s consider your audience. Who is your customer and what are they looking for when they are searching for your products? For example, if you are a personal trainer your audience might be typing into Instagram, Pinterest, or Google “fitness tips” “how to get strong” “what to eat in a day to gain muscle”- something like that. Hot tip, pretend you were your target audience and literally start typing out some of these ideas that come up in these search engines as this might give you some helpful insights and keywords you haven’t thought about.
2) Keyword Integration in Captions
Now that you have all of that data? Great. Let’s start integrating this into your content strategy, and most importantly in your captions. If healthy recipes were a leading search query, structure your content around this and be sure that every week you include a food-based recipe reel. Lead your caption with these specific search queries and delight your customer with a helpful video tutorial or graphic tile that helps sum up some of the wisdom they’ve come to you to find out!
3) Update Your Instagram Name
A quick fix yet a great opportunity to increase your visibility - make it clear to your customer what you offer. Not just your name, add your services in there too! If possible, update your handle too. For example, if you're a travel Instagram account, why not make it @megstravelstheworld or @travelwithmeg.
You’ll notice in my profile for example, I don’t have Meg McCarthy, but rather my business name and the services I offer. As much as my ego would like to believe otherwise, I don’t think many people would be out there actively searching for my full name. They would however, be searching for things like ‘Digital Marketing Agency’ so this gives me a better chance of showing up.
4) Add Your Keywords to Your Bio
Your bio shouldn’t be a short little one liner. This is a great place to put in the common keywords that were coming up for you when you did your research in step one. For example, your destination for ‘Your fitness tips destination’ or ‘Weekly exercises to help you gain muscle’. Get the idea?
5) Include Keyword-Rich Alt Text
“Alt text” is descriptive text that describes what your photo or video is about for visually impaired users. Screen readers read aloud text descriptions in this section, so it's important that you make this experience as positive as possible to ensure Instagram is an accessible platform for everyone. Without “keyword stuffing” (a bad practice of just trying to pop your keywords in as many times as possible that things stop making sense), if you can include keywords in these descriptions this can also assist in increasing your reach.
I hope the world of SEO is a little less scary right now, and if you ever need someone to manage your strategy ongoing because you can’t be bothered with it… reach out to me! I love it and I’d also LOVE to help you.