Online Marketing FAQs

Google Ads (formerly Google AdWords) is an advertising platform. Search engine marketing, or SEM, is the wider practice of promoting a business through search engines; it commonly refers to paid search. A Google Ads search campaign is one way to put SEM into action.

Your total investment includes advertising spend and any campaign management fees. The right budget depends on your market, competition, goals and the value of a new customer. You set a budget in Google Ads, and we can help plan a realistic starting point before you commit.

Paid search can put your offer in front of people actively looking for related products or services. Campaigns can target relevant searches and locations, while conversion tracking helps you see which activity produces enquiries or sales. Results depend on the offer, competition and landing-page experience.

A useful campaign starts with clear business goals, relevant keywords and a landing page that makes the next step easy. Speak with TBS about campaign planning, ad copy, conversion tracking and ongoing optimisation, with reporting focused on meaningful leads or sales. Explore our Google Ads services.

SEM commonly means paid advertising on search engines. Your ads can appear when someone searches for terms related to your business, helping connect an existing need with a relevant offer. It works best when the search, ad and landing page all match.

Search engine optimisation helps search engines understand your website and helps people find useful pages in organic search results. It combines helpful content, sound technical foundations and a clear site structure. Learn about our SEO services.

SEO can help relevant customers discover your website without paying for each organic click. Clear, useful pages also support a better browsing experience. Its value builds over time, although visibility and enquiries depend on competition, demand and the quality of your website.

The best mix depends on your goals. SEO supports ongoing search visibility, PPC can reach people searching now, and social media helps introduce your brand and build relationships. We can help you choose a starting point based on your audience, budget and sales process.

On-page SEO improves the pages on your own website: useful copy, descriptive titles, headings, internal links and clear image descriptions. Technical improvements help make those pages accessible and understandable to search engines and visitors.

Off-page SEO covers signals beyond your own website, such as relevant editorial links and mentions. The focus should be on earning visibility through useful expertise, content and relationships. Buying manipulative links can undermine that work.

The robots.txt file tells compatible search crawlers which parts of a site they may request. It is not a reliable way to hide a page from search results or protect private information. Sensitive content needs access controls; indexing restrictions require the appropriate settings.

There is no fixed timeline or guaranteed first-page position. Progress depends on your starting point, competition and the changes required. Some changes can be reflected relatively quickly, while broader improvements can take months. An initial audit helps set realistic priorities and expectations.

Social media marketing uses content, community activity and paid campaigns to connect a brand with its audience. It can support awareness, enquiries, sales and repeat business. Explore our social media marketing services.

Start with where your customers spend time and how they make buying decisions. The best choice also depends on the content you can produce consistently and the actions you want people to take. A focused presence is usually easier to manage than trying to publish everywhere.

Organic posts give people a reason to follow and engage with your brand. Paid campaigns can help reach a selected audience and support a specific offer or objective. The right balance depends on your existing community, campaign goals and available budget.

Match measurement to the goal: reach for awareness, meaningful engagement for community activity, and tracked enquiries or purchases for acquisition. Review lead quality and revenue where tracking allows, alongside platform figures, so the report reflects business outcomes.

Useful answers, product demonstrations, customer stories and behind-the-scenes content can help people understand your business. Build a content plan around customer questions, brand personality and upcoming offers, then refine it using audience feedback and results.

Technical SEO is the behind-the-scenes work that helps search engines crawl, index and understand your whole website: site speed, mobile-friendliness, secure connections, clean site structure, XML sitemaps, structured data and fixing crawl errors. On-page SEO improves individual pages; technical SEO makes sure the entire site is accessible and understandable to search engines in the first place.

Keyword research is the process of finding the actual words and phrases people type when looking for what you offer. It guides which pages you build, what your headings and copy say, and where your effort goes. Without it, you can create great content nobody searches for. With it, you focus on topics with genuine search demand that you can realistically compete for.

No reputable company can. Search engines decide what ranks, and no one outside them controls the algorithm. Be cautious of promises of “guaranteed #1”, particularly where the approach relies on low-quality tactics. What we can commit to is a clear plan, honest reporting and consistent work on the factors that support visibility.

Local SEO helps your business appear in nearby searches, “dentist near me”, “cafe in Bangkok”. It covers your Google Business Profile, reviews, accurate name/address/phone details across directories, and location-focused content. It is particularly useful for businesses that serve a physical area rather than customers anywhere in the world.

Links from other reputable websites can help search engines discover your content and assess its relevance. Quality matters far more than quantity, a few relevant links from respected sources are more useful than hundreds of low-quality directories. Links are earned through useful content and real relationships; buying manipulative links is risky and can set your site back.

Useful, well-structured content, service pages, guides, FAQs and blog posts, helps you answer the questions your customers search for. It gives your site more opportunities to appear for relevant queries and demonstrate expertise. It also gives other sites something worth linking to, which supports your off-page SEO too.

Agencies usually charge a monthly retainer, and pricing varies with the size of your site, the competitiveness of your market and the level of service you need. The real question is value: what a new customer is worth to you and how much business the campaign needs to generate to pay for itself. We scope what you actually need and price it before you commit, no long-term contracts.

They do different jobs. Ads can put you in front of people searching now, while the budget is running. SEO builds organic visibility that does not depend on paying for every click, although it still needs ongoing attention. Many businesses use a mix: ads for immediate visibility and testing; SEO for a longer-term presence. The right starting point depends on your goals and how quickly you need results.

AIO means making your website easier for AI-powered search and assistants, such as ChatGPT, Copilot and Google AI Overviews, to find, understand and reference. As people use AI tools to research questions and compare businesses, visibility in those answers adds another dimension to traditional search marketing.

Traditional SEO focuses on visibility in search results. AIO also considers how AI systems retrieve sources and summarise answers. The foundations overlap: accessible pages, useful content and a clear site structure. AIO places particular emphasis on direct answers, clear descriptions of your business and consistent information across relevant sources. No approach can guarantee an AI citation.

Search habits are changing, but there is no clear timetable for one channel to replace another. The practical response is to support discovery across both: keep traditional SEO healthy while making your content easy for AI systems to understand and reference.

AI answers may reduce clicks for some queries, while other users will still visit a website to explore details, compare options or buy. The impact varies by business and search type. Track qualified visits and enquiries alongside visibility, rather than assuming every change in traffic has the same cause.

Start with a technically accessible website, clear answers to real customer questions and useful coverage of your services. Keep your business details consistent across your website, profiles, directories and relevant third-party sources. These are sound foundations for discovery, but each AI system chooses its own sources and citations are not guaranteed.

AEO focuses on making content useful as a direct answer to a spoken or typed question. Concise Q&A sections, clear definitions and appropriate structured data can help organise that information. It overlaps with AIO and SEO; using a particular format does not guarantee a featured snippet or AI citation.

No. AIO is about making your content understandable and useful to AI systems, not filling your site with machine-generated text. Content should be accurate, original and valuable to your audience, whether AI assists the process or not. Real expertise and human review remain essential.

We track visibility in AI-generated answers and brand mentions across AI platforms, presence in AI Overviews alongside traditional rankings, and the visits, enquiries and sales that flow through. AI answers can vary by query, platform and time, so we combine sampled visibility checks with the search and conversion data you already have, and report it in plain language.

Search ads appear on search engine results pages when someone searches for terms related to your targeting, they reach people actively looking for what you offer. Display ads use visual formats across websites and apps to build awareness or reconnect with interested audiences. Strong campaigns may use both at different stages; performance depends on the audience, offer and objective.

Remarketing reconnects with people who have already visited your website or engaged with your brand, where platform rules and consent settings allow. It can support a longer buying journey by reminding interested people about a relevant offer. Its effectiveness depends on the audience, timing and message.

CPC can change with competition, seasonality, your bidding strategy and the quality of your ads and landing pages. Review search terms, targeting, ad relevance and conversion performance before increasing spend. The aim is to improve the value of the traffic, not simply chase the cheapest click.

Quality Score is a diagnostic rating in Google Ads based on expected click-through rate, ad relevance and landing-page experience. It helps identify where an ad experience could improve; the score itself is not a direct auction input. Use it to guide better keywords, more relevant ads and landing pages that deliver what the ad promises.

Conversion tracking connects campaign activity with enquiries, calls or sales and helps show what each outcome costs. We set up tracking before launch and report on meaningful outcomes, leads and revenue, not just clicks and impressions. Tracking has limits, so reviewing lead quality, sales records and profit margins alongside platform reports gives a clearer picture.

Yes. Your ad budget is yours to control, and campaigns can be paused, adjusted or scaled whenever you need. We do not lock you into long-term contracts. We recommend giving a campaign long enough to gather useful data before judging it, and allowing for the learning effects of major changes.

A keyword is a word or phrase an advertiser targets; a search term is what someone actually types. An audience is a group defined by characteristics, interests or behaviour. Search campaigns can use keywords to connect with intent, while audience targeting helps reach or refine groups of people. The right combination depends on the campaign type and goal.

Consistency beats volume. Three to five thoughtful posts a week on one or two platforms can be a starting point, rather than a fixed rule. The right frequency depends on your audience, industry and content capacity, a realistic schedule you can sustain beats a burst you cannot.

Real growth is gradual and unpredictable. It can take months of consistent posting, engagement and testing to build meaningful traction, although some niche communities grow faster. Follower count alone is not the goal: a smaller, relevant audience that engages and buys can be more valuable than a large passive one.

Start with your audience data. Platform-wide averages can offer ideas, but your customers’ timezone, routines and engagement patterns matter more. We test posting times and adjust. It also helps to publish when your team can respond to comments and questions.

Organic reach is how many people see your posts without paid promotion. Paid reach comes from advertising that distributes content to an audience within the platform’s targeting options. Organic activity supports community and trust; paid activity can extend visibility. Neither guarantees that every person reached is a suitable customer.

Respond promptly, politely and publicly where appropriate, it shows other customers you take feedback seriously. Avoid deleting legitimate criticism. Move personal details and complex complaints to a private conversation, fix what you can and follow up. Spam, abuse and content that breaks platform rules can be handled through moderation tools.

Video is worth testing when it helps demonstrate a product, explain a service or show the people behind your brand. You do not always need a production studio, clear, useful phone footage can work well. For launches, brand films and larger campaigns, professional production can provide more control and consistency.

A full creative studio under one roof: branding and logo design, packaging design, videography (brand films, commercials, corporate and explainer videos, event coverage, drone footage), photography (product, food, property, lifestyle, events), graphic design, infographic design and AI media generation. One team, one creative direction, from first concept to production-ready files.

Video is usually quoted per project because scope varies widely: length, locations, crew, equipment, talent, editing and motion graphics all change the price. A short social cutdown costs a fraction of a full brand film. We scope the deliverables and give you a clear quote before work begins, with any changes to scope agreed along the way.

A single product or food shoot can often be completed in a day. Brand films and multi-location productions need more time, including planning and post-production. A full branding-to-production programme typically runs 12–20 weeks; individual services are far faster. You will receive a realistic timeline at the proposal stage, before anything starts.

Stock photos work for backgrounds and generic concepts, but they cannot show your actual product, team or space. Custom photography helps customers see what makes your business different and supports brand consistency. Most businesses use a mix: stock for supporting imagery, custom wherever authenticity matters.

A brand film is a short video that tells the story of who you are and why you exist. It can introduce your business on your homepage, social profiles and in pitches. It is worth considering when a strong visual first impression matters to your audience and sales process; the scope should fit your goals and budget.

Absolutely. We can work within your established brand system or help you evolve it, you do not need to start from scratch. Formats for digital platforms and professional print are agreed at the start, and everything is delivered production-ready for the channels your audience actually uses.

AI media can help extend brand assets into more images, videos and graphics, but each use needs review. Use suitable source materials, check the tool’s terms and permissions, keep human creative direction, and review outputs for accuracy, brand fit and potential rights issues. Be transparent where the context requires it. We keep human review in the process; no tool makes every output automatically suitable for commercial use.