Pro Digital Marketing Tips To Help Your Business Thrive
Digital marketing is a constantly changing field, and it can be difficult to know where to start to draw the most traffic to your business. Unless you’re an online advertising pro, you might get quickly overwhelmed by the possible marketing strategies and options available to you. Use these tips from the industry’s top experts to get your website on the right track for success.
Getting Personal
Nowadays most digital users are looking for content that speaks directly to them, rather than generic advertising. “There’s a reason that social media features like Stories are growing so fast,” says Missy Buck of Miss Ink, and Eric Melillo of Coforge agrees. “Prospective buyers no longer want to be sold to. They are real people with real challenges.” So how do you directly engage your users on a personal level? Gregory Wright from The Innovative Resource Group suggests that “marketers must provide value-driven content that helps the prospects circumstance in order to build a bond of trust before pitching a product or service.”
Content Is Key
Content will never go away, especially in the eyes of search engines. Thomas Hess from Mawazo Marketing explains: “Content is essential to make your website findable and improve your Google ranking, but there is already so much content out there so how do you make your content stand out? In 2019 we focus on helping out client create a meaningful content infrastructure so that web pages and blogs work together. We create a hub page with a compelling title which gives structure to your content, links out to all relevant content you already have, and highlights the content that needs to be created to make our client’s websites a worthwhile resource for their ideal clients.”
And according to Erika Taylor Montgomery, CEO of Three Girls Media, “Consistency is key in digital marketing; post frequently and on a regular basis to keep your audience engaged.”
What Do You Want Them To Do?
Agency Jet, a website design company believes in turning your website into two-way communication. “Your website’s only goal is to turn one-way communication into two-way communication. Ask yourself, “What is the main thing I want my website to do?” If it’s to get orders, have a super easy shopping cart. If it’s to get quotes, have your RFQ button clearly visible on all pages at all times,” says Colby Wegter. “Want calls? Make your number big and bold and one of the first things they see.”
Speed
“Desktop site speed has been a Google ranking factor for almost eight years. Again, that’s not really news, but Google is now including mobile sites in the speed ranking equation as well,” says Sean Rieger of Edgewater Digital. “So, if you weren’t already focused on your site’s performance, Google is giving you yet another reason. In July of 2018, Google started using a ranking signal focused purely on mobile site speed. They called it the “Speed Update.” In short, they will be lowering rankings for slower mobile sites in order to help mobile searchers find sites that deliver what Google considers to be a “better mobile experience.” No big deal if your site is already fast, but if it’s not as fast as your competitor’s then things are going to get even more competitive, quickly.
So some people are saying things like: “I spend enough on Google Ads to not worry about search rank.” Well, not so fast. Remember, in Google Ads the quality of your landing page for an ad can affect your Ad Rank. Ad Rank is defined by Google as:
“A value that’s used to determine your ad position (where ads are shown on a page relative to other ads) and whether your ads will show at all. Ad Rank is calculated using your bid amount, your auction-time ad quality (including expected click-through rate, ad relevance, and landing page experience).”
So what that means is that the landing page experience part is vital because, according to Google, two of the four things you can do to improve that experience is:
Decrease your landing page loading time, make your site fast.
No, I didn’t just repeat myself. Notice how Google prioritizes speed so highly that they added it twice? So, with page speed now being measured on mobile, you could be spending more money to beat a competitor with the same exact content but a faster loading page.”
Tried And True Techniques
Technical SEO will continue to pave the way for SEO strategies in 2019. Jason Reece of ioCreative says, “One of the most effective but overlooked SEO strategies for 2019 continues to be proper implementation of rel=”canonical”. By optimizing your landing page strategy for SERPs, you can sculpt cornerstone content to propel the user’s journey. And if you want a better landing page presence, employ a page-by-page taxonomy and reduce the number of self-referring URLs. Google will reward you!”
While the industry might be constantly changing, there are a few elements of SEO and digital marketing that remain consistent from year to year. Joshua Belland explains: “Organic search is still the highest converting digital medium that exists. It was 10 years ago and it still is today.” Many of the best tactics to increase your search rankings have been foreshadowed for some time now, says Chris Walker from Rank Control. “Google has been pushing the ‘create great content’ mantra for some time now,” and their algorithms zero in on what defines “great content” with every update.
Noah Learner of Bike Shop SEO sees a holistic approach working. “I see a holistic approach working for my ecommerce clients. The simple and effective strategy includes long form content marketing and ppc shopping campaigns driving traffic on the front end, with Facebook retargeting and cart abandonment recovery tools on the back end to get shoppers to return and buy.”
Fortunately, it’s getting easier and easier to keep track of where your metrics are at on this front. Fabrizio Colombi of Decographic explains: “Digital marketing compared to traditional marketing can be better measured and controlled.”
As for what metrics you should pay most attention to, there are several differing opinions. “You can’t go wrong focusing the majority of your efforts on relevancy, content, and UX,” says Scott Paparella of LNP Media Group. Rob Sanders of RSO Consulting also suggests, “Our clients are very focused on A/B testing this year. It’s the main way we are working with them to improve website performance.” Jeanette Bodnar of Think Martin First recommends focusing on responsiveness as well. “Use Google Pagespeed: Our real-world results show that implementing Pagespeed optimization suggestions make improvements in rankings.”
Google My Business
“Want a huge return on your marketing investment? Take advantage of the fact that 46% of Google searches are local and complete the Free registration for Google My Business,” says Nick Leroy of Bright Minds Marketing. “This gets you inclusion in Google Maps, the coveted three pack, online reviews, the ability to post pictures of your business as well as a direct link to your phone number.”
Interesting Innovations
While sticking to traditional SEO tactics can be helpful, it’s also important to keep up to date with the newest technologies entering the market, as well as user trends. “Mobile devices account for nearly 60% of all traffic,” says Emily Fent of Honey and Hare. “Ensure that your website is fast, responsive, and fully functional on mobile devices.” Charlcie Sais of Common Thread Collective agrees: “Google’s move towards mobile-first indexing means that your mobile site will be the primary source for ranking.”
Advanced technology will continue to play a role in the SEO world. Regan Morton of FiG Advertising + Marketing explains, “As the digital marketing space becomes more technologically inclined, many marketers forget that, ultimately, it is most important to market to people first. All the technical SEO best practices in the world won’t make up for content that’s so keyword-laden a user can’t comprehend what the piece is actually about. Luckily enough, the shift towards voice search actually supports the effort to write toward a human reader first on the most fundamental level. Instead of typing ‘coffee shop’ into Google, consumers are, instead, saying ‘Hey Siri, find a coffee shop near me.’ Regardless of the types of businesses you’re marketing for, if SEO is a part of your digital marketing strategy, don’t get too caught up in the technicalities of it. Provide your consumers with an exceptional user-experience.”
Don’t forget about alternative mediums for your content as well, like video. Jessamyn Anderson of Dingo Creative elaborates: “Video is powerful, engaging and shareable. It works well with search engines and it is a great way to reach audiences.”
Digital marketing can be a challenging field to keep up with, but with these top tips from industry experts, you and your website will be soaring to the top of the rankings in no time. Make sure to keep up with the advice of all the leading experts to keep your website performing as well as it possibly can.
