Lucy Hurst on Strategies for Online Visibility and Engagement

With more and more business owners realising the importance of being online in today's day and age, the need for a well-defined strategy for online visibility has never been more crucial. Today, we are joined by Lucy Hurst, the Managing Director of, award winning, digital marketing agency, Sherbet Donkey Media, who is here to impart her expertise and assist fellow business leaders in gaining recognition.

Can you share a bit about your business and how it has embraced the digital landscape for growth and visibility?

Sherbet Donkey Media is, essentially, helping other businesses to embrace the digital landscape. We have a fantastic team of experts who all work tirelessly, and constantly keep their finger on the ever- evolving landscape of digital marketing, to help other businesses thrive and buzz of their results.

What specific strategies have you employed to enhance your online presence and engage with your target audience?

We've recently updated our website and there will be more and more updates to come when our development team are able to find a minute from working on clients' projects. Aside from that, we are all constantly doing work for clients to ensure that they are getting the best possible result.

Can you provide an example of a digital campaign or initiative that significantly boosted your business’s visibility or customer engagement?

There are several things that businesses can do to boost business visibility and customer engagement and we've seen success with these for our clients over and over again. First of is branding, this is not just a logo, it's an entire template for your business and how it presents itself. Secondly, you need to establish a professional online presence, in other words, you need a good website. We design out websites from your users' point of view because, ultimately, they're going to be the ones using it. Then, SEO or Search Engine Optimisation which will help your site to move up Google rankings for relevant search terms. You may well be skeptical about this, we get e-mails saying the sender can get us to position one within a week and we know that's not feasible, at least not for terms we'd want to be found for and is most likely a scam. We have a proven track record and an extensive SEO department who ensure they will get you results. That said, we'll always be honest about what kind of results you can expect to see when.

The digital world is constantly evolving. What challenges have you faced in maintaining an active and effective online presence, and how have you overcome them?

I think one thing that most SEO experts dread is a Google update because it can really throw your metrics, however, with an effective and bespoke SEO strategy in place, these results will normally return to normal in about a week and stabilise while Google sorts the wheat from the chaff.

What tools or platforms have you found most effective for building your online presence and engaging with your audience?

We've used a plethora of tools for website design and development and SEO. We keep a fairly open mind so if we find a different tool which we believe will serve us and our clients better than we'll be open to trialing and then possibly using that.

How do you measure the success of your digital strategies, and what key performance indicators do you focus on?

We look at user journeys and heat maps for websites. For SEO, we will run periodic reports to show the movement on Google and, of course, answer any questions our clients may have. We appreciate that while we use these tools day in and day out, receiving a report for the first time could be confusing so we're on hand to answer any queries.

The digital landscape is always changing. How do you stay up-to-date with the latest trends and technologies, and how do you decide which ones to adopt?

We have approximately 40 members of very talented staff who all keep their finger on the pulse, because you're absolutely right- the digital landscape is always changing, they're all experts in their fields and they all work collaboratively as well so will always be bouncing ideas off each other having researched them first. If we decide to adopt a new strategy then it is normally on our own website first to see how it performs and if it does well then it's something that we can look at rolling out to clients.

What advice would you give to businesses that are just starting to establish their online presence and engage with customers digitally?

Speaking candidly, and I don't want this to come across as harsh, however I've seen quite a few business owners who have had a go at creating their own website and doing their own SEO and I commend them for trying. However, when they're running a business and trying to stay atop all the constantly evolving digital marketing trends, which they may well have only just learned, is just too much to ask of yourself. So, I'd say look at engaging an agency who can do the work for you and who are experts in their field.