The world of marketing is in a constant state of change. New digital marketing trends are always emerging as innovative ways to reach consumers are pioneered. 2018 brings around many new technologies and the associated strategies for reaching customers that go with them.
Here are five new digital marketing trends that are predicted to grow in 2018:
Live Social Content
Live content through social media platforms is a trend that showed tremendous growth over the course of 2017. Many brands have jumped on this bandwagon by using Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to live stream events. One of the benefits offered by live streaming is that it capitalizes on the popular trend of visual web elements and attracts far larger levels of viewership than normal video posts, making it a great medium for promotional messages. With more and more users tuning in to view live social media content, this is a trend that will only continue to grow for this year.
Interactive Content
While some may think that email marketing is one of the marketing strategies that are on the decline, this is actually not the case. What is changing is that sending out personalized, engaging, and interactive content is taking over. This is because interactivity offers a far more compelling and engaging experience. A strong content strategy is key to increasing web-based sales which makes interactive emails a solid forerunner for new trends. Surveys, videos, GIFs, menus, and real-time marketing are just a few examples of email elements that saw success in 2017 and will continue to do so this year.
Honesty/Transparency in Advertising
Many of us have seen commercials in 2018 and may have noticed that several different brands take it upon themselves to break the fourth wall and point out that they are selling a product. This form of honesty and transparency (and occasionally, a bit of humor) has been incredibly well received by audiences. This form of advertising serves as an example of how marketers are realizing that audiences crave transparency. This trend will only continue to grow in all facets of marketing for 2018 as brands acknowledge their audience’s awareness that they are viewing an advertisement.
Voice Search and AI
Voice search and AI devices have been a rapidly growing phenomenon over the past few years. Voice controlled personal assistants are currently available through smartphones, speakers, TVs, and are even possibly paving the way to a larger, smart house-esque, future.
We predict that the integration of marketing strategies into these devices will be a growing trend in 2018. Given that these devices are such a new frontier, it is hard to say exactly how marketing efforts will tackle them, but it is certain that micro-moments will play heavily into new strategies.
Virtual & Augmented Reality Marketing
Virtual and augmented reality are two new technologies that are experiencing positive reception by audiences as well as progressively increasing sales. With such an immersive platform, it is guaranteed that marketing strategies will be capitalizing on the interactive capabilities offered by this exciting new technology. We believe that 2018 will be the year that marketing efforts will start to find their footing when it comes to reaching consumers through these mediums.
New marketing strategies are key when it comes to staying ahead of the curve and maintaining a competitive edge. If your business could benefit from new and exciting methods of reaching your target audience, contact Linda Fanaras, President/Strategist of Millennium Agency www.mill.agency.
About Millennium Agency
Millennium Agency is a nationally recognized, top woman led B2B branding, positioning, and digital marketing firm who knows how to create value that emotionally influences your customer’s buying decision, giving you the competitive advantage. As your trusted partner in B2B software technology and manufacturing, we provide the branding and positioning framework that make an impact – so you can focus on what you do best – run your business successfully. With offices in Boston and New Hampshire, and a worldwide presence, the professionals at Millennium Agency would like to learn more about your business. Visit www.mill.agency or book time here.
Consumer data is crucial to the efficiency and success of a business’ marketing efforts. It can be used to learn what worked in the past, what is effective in the present, and which direction to go in the future. After all, casting a wide net for your marketing efforts may get through to your target audience but it can be expensive and time consuming. Homing in and reaching your target market based on their consumer trends is far more cost effective. In addition, it allows for better resource allocation. So, how exactly do you make the most of your consumer data? Here are a few tips that will help with that:
Ensure Accurate Data
Before diving in, it is important to stress that consumer data is only helpful if it is an accurate depiction of your target audience, meaning it needs to be gathered from the right sources, and it needs to reflect exactly where your sales are coming from.
For example, if you are viewing a source report, you will have an excellent idea of how users are reaching your website. But do you know how long they are staying on the site? Or where most of your leads and sales are coming from? Say social media links account for 70% of your web traffic, but search engine result pages yield the most sales. If that is the case, then social media is not necessarily an accurate depiction of consumers that are purchasing your product or service. As you can see, it’s just as important to know how to interpret your consumer data as it is to gather it accurately.
Learn What Works and Change What Doesn’t
The first step to making the most out of your consumer data? Trace where your highest conversions are coming from. Is it social media? Web searches? YouTube ads? The next step is to determine where your marketing efforts need improvement. Once this is established, the best performing strategies can be applied to areas that aren’t experiencing success. For example, if you have a well-designed landing page that is achieving a high conversion rate, try designing the features of your other landing pages around emulating that success.
Look for Hidden Trends
Searching for new methods to reach consumers is always an important part of consumer data analysis. Your data might reveal a new way to get through to consumers that you hadn’t thought of yet. For example, perhaps your business was experiencing successful conversion rates from announcing a new product through social media. Writing blogs and creating a news release focusing on keywords surrounding your new product would be a strategic way to capitalize on this social buzz.
Launch New Campaigns and Experiment
Hone your competitive edge by launching new campaigns that focus on your successful lead conversions. Were your old marketing campaigns mildly successful overall but had one very successful facet? Then launch a new campaign focusing on that facet and experiment with what makes it effective.
The world of marketing is in a constant state of change. New technologies and communicative trends require new strategies to adapt to these changes. While current strategies may achieve peak success this year, they may not be as successful next year. This is why it is essential to study what resonates with consumers. Experiment with new cutting-edge campaigns to repeatedly hit your mark year after year.
If analyzing consumer data and developing a new marketing strategy around it is something that you feel could benefit your business, contact Jessica Chabot, Vice President, Client Services of Millennium Agency at www.mill.agency.
About Millennium Agency
Millennium Agency is a nationally recognized, top woman led B2B branding, positioning, and digital marketing firm who knows how to create value that emotionally influences your customer’s buying decision, giving you the competitive advantage. As your trusted partner in B2B software technology and manufacturing, we provide the branding and positioning framework that make an impact – so you can focus on what you do best – run your business successfully. With offices in Boston and New Hampshire, and a worldwide presence, the professionals at Millennium Agency would like to learn more about your business. Visit www.mill.agency or book time here.
Programmatic advertising has been a buzzword in the marketing industry for the past few years, but what exactly is this new trend? With so many terms associated with the trend, it can be difficult to understand exactly what it is.
Programmatic advertising can be generally defined as using an automated system to manage your media purchasing efforts to efficiently reach the right target audiences, at the right time, and in the right place. It encompasses many different facets, Real Time Bidding (RTB) is one well-known form of this new trend.
There are many advantages of using programmatic advertising techniques. In this article we will discuss a basic overview of the trend as well as the benefits it offers.
What It Can Do
Once you have determined your target market and created display advertisements to reach this group, then you can then begin using programmatic technology to set your strategy in motion. The first step is to input parameters surrounding a target audience’s age, gender, social standing, and geographic location. Next, you must determine factors such as which advertisements to use and how much you are willing to budget for, then the software will begin to go to work based on this data.
RTB is a form of programmatic advertising that many marketers are familiar with. RTB uses consumer data gathered on users to automatically buy ad space and present them with relevant information. One example of RTB is the automatic placement of native advertising that has relevant information to the user based on their demographics and interests. This process is fully automated with very minimal, if any, human input needed.
Why Use Programmatic Techniques?
There are many benefits associated with using programmatic advertising techniques to reach you target market. A few of these include:
Increased Efficiency:
With machine learning and AI, programmatic techniques can target audiences by picking up on trends and taking advantage of big data in ways that humans can’t. This form of automation does away with the older method of casting a wide net of advertisements and then homing in on what works and what doesn’t. Instead, programmatic technology starts small and focuses on what ads are working right out of the gate.
Cost-Effective Advertising:
Agreed upon prices allow for more flexibility because advertisers can sign up for minimum impressions or a minimum budget. Cost-efficiency in digital marketing is all about knowing what leads are good leads and how to convert users into these leads and then sales. Marketers that have a good idea of what leads are converting into sales can adjust programmatic methods, and then let the algorithms reach out to these leads. In this way, using AI to place advertisements based on a set budget allows for optimal placement and therefore maximum ROI.
Less Human Input:
Programmatic technology is beneficial in this area because it eliminates human error and provides optimal allocation of time. When programmatic advertising techniques are utilized, human input is no longer needed for things such as sending insertion orders or dealing with ad tags. This allows for more time to focus on strategy and other aspects of marketing.
New marketing strategies are constantly changing the game when it comes to reaching the right audience at the right time. If you feel that your business could benefit from new and exciting ways to strengthen your brand and target potential customers, contact Linda Fanaras, President/Strategist of Millennium Agency www.mill.agency.
About Millennium Agency
Millennium Agency is a nationally recognized, top woman led B2B branding, positioning, and digital marketing firm who knows how to create value that emotionally influences your customer’s buying decision, giving you the competitive advantage. As your trusted partner in B2B software technology and manufacturing, we provide the branding and positioning framework that make an impact – so you can focus on what you do best – run your business successfully. With offices in Boston and New Hampshire, and a worldwide presence, the professionals at Millennium Agency would like to learn more about your business. Visit www.mill.agency or book time here.
We are now living in a mobile era. Much of society is on-the-go these days and people often use their smartphones, more-so than they use stationary computers, to find information quickly. Whether it be looking for the closest Italian restaurant, buying a new pair of shoes, or researching their next vacation spot, people turn to their mobile devices for answers. These are what we call “micro-moments,” or moments when people impulsively turn to their devices for their inquiries. Consumers have become trained by technology to receive relevant information instantly and these moments in which their inquiries are answered often lead to real-world action. Would you consider your business a master of micro-moments? Does your business have a strong mobile presence that draws in customers time after time?
If you feel that your business’ mobile/web savviness could use a bit of shoring up, here are a few tips that could help you master these micro-moments:
Ensure Mobile-Friendliness:
Most micro-moments occur on mobile devices and, as many people know, navigating a site on a smartphone is much different than navigating one on the large screen of a laptop or desktop computer. It is important that your mobile site is easy to navigate and not crowded with unnecessary icons, graphics, or text. A good landing page is a great start toward improving mobile friendliness. If a user finds your mobile site captivating and easy to navigate, they will most likely use it again.
Side note: Try to avoid aggressive pop-ups and ads on your mobile landing page and articles. These may discourage repeat use from a user who is trying to quickly access information.
Search Engine Optimization:
It is important that your link comes up at the top of user’s searches. Usually consumers on-the-go don’t have time to scroll through dozens of links and need a quick answer. There are a few ways to strengthen your business’ SEO, one of them is content creation. Be sure to update your website consistently by publishing new and exciting content. Search engines such as Google and Yahoo will give websites a higher rank if they see that they are frequently updated. This is just one example of how to improve SEO, there are several other different ways to ensure that your link is one of the first responders to the many micro-moment inquiries occurring all around the world.
Research, Research, Research:
When do your customers reach for their phone and what are they immediately looking for? It is important to know your customer and it may be necessary to rearrange your content pages based on what your mobile customers need. Depending on the products or services you offer, it is possible to hone in on certain trends to best reach your customers.
For example, roughly one-third of all mobile searches involve location. Now suppose you own a bakery and through your market research, you discover that a good number of mobile searches for bakeries in your area happen between 5pm and 7pm. If your store closes at 5pm, it may be worthwhile to stay open a little longer to capitalize on these micro-moments.
Now, this is only one example of how researching your customer’s micro-moments can help you provide better customer service and increase profits; new trends in this field are always emerging, and always providing new opportunities.
There are many ways in which micro-moments are changing the game. If you feel that your business could benefit from a better mobile presence, or if you would simply like to get more information, contact Jessica Chabot, Vice President, Client Services of Millennium Agency at www.mill.agency.
About Millennium Agency
Millennium Agency is a nationally recognized, top woman led B2B branding, positioning, and digital marketing firm who knows how to create value that emotionally influences your customer’s buying decision, giving you the competitive advantage. As your trusted partner in B2B software technology and manufacturing, we provide the branding and positioning framework that make an impact – so you can focus on what you do best – run your business successfully. With offices in Boston and New Hampshire, and a worldwide presence, the professionals at Millennium Agency would like to learn more about your business. Visit www.mill.agency or book time here.
We all receive marketing emails from a business we showed some interest in at one point or another. If you’re like most people, you may receive a few marketing emails per day. If you’re also like most people, it’s safe to say that only a select few of these catch your eye while many others go unanswered. If your business’s emails are ending up in the unanswered category, it may be time to revise the content and structure of your emails. Here are a few “Do’s and Don’ts” of successful email marketing.
Do
Use catchy/attention-grabbing subject lines and preview text.
This is the first point of contact between you and your potential customer, it is what encourages them to move forward and read the content of the email. A boring subject line may push you out the door before any of your content is even viewed. Keep in mind that you only have so much space to work with so short and intriguing is the way to go.
Be consistent with your brand.
If your business promotes eco-friendly materials with nature pictures and a green-colored logo, then your email’s content should reflect the same imagery and logo. The average person skims through marketing emails in only a matter of seconds. If a customer doesn’t recognize your brand quickly, you may have already lost them. Remember, your email marketing should work to build your brand, not clash with it.
Show that you know your customer base’s values.
Most people usually want to read information that is relevant to themselves, so you should give it them. For example, if your business is a bank, then it is likely that your customers value saving money. Perhaps open with text that includes this value to catch their attention: “Enjoy saving money? XYZ Bank is here to help you with your goal!”
Don’t
Limit yourself to using only text to talk about your business.
Graphics and pictures catch people’s attention. Many people these days are visual learners as well as visual communicators. Capitalize on this by including relevant images to capture the reader’s attention and drive your point home. A brief warning: Too many images can be overwhelming, try to focus on quality rather than quantity when it comes to imagery.
Make your email any longer than it has to be.
Many consumers don’t like to read a bulky email, especially when it is interrupting their day. Filler and over-explanatory text may cause your potential customer to lose interest in your emails over time and begin unsubscribing. Depending on the type of business you run, a short reminder to your customer that you are there to help may be all that you need.
Forget to personalize your emails.
As mentioned earlier, people like to read information that pertains to them. If your email opens with Hello Jane Doe, it is more likely to resonate with Jane Doe than an email that simply opens with Hello Customer. It may take more effort to personalize your emails, but the effort pays off when more emails are opened after the readers see that the text was intended specifically for them and their needs.
Email marketing is a tricky field to navigate, and every customer is different. If your business’s email marketing efforts are going unanswered then contact Jessica Chabot, Vice President, Client Services of Millennium Agency at www.mill.agency.
About Millennium Agency
Millennium Agency is a nationally recognized, top woman led B2B branding, positioning, and digital marketing firm who knows how to create value that emotionally influences your customer’s buying decision, giving you the competitive advantage. As your trusted partner in B2B software technology and manufacturing, we provide the branding and positioning framework that make an impact – so you can focus on what you do best – run your business successfully. With offices in Boston and New Hampshire, and a worldwide presence, the professionals at Millennium Agency would like to learn more about your business. Visit www.mill.agency or book time here.
With over 1 billion active accounts, it’s no surprise that businesses want to integrate Facebook into their inbound website strategy. However, Facebook has become more than just a social media platform; the site has evolved into a powerful marketing machine through which any business, group, or figure has the ability to extend their reach in exciting and rewarding ways. The benefits of retargeting through Facebook — specifically aiming ads at audiences based on their previous activities in order to steer them back to your content—are numerous.
So why has retargeting through Facebook become a focal point for advertising campaigns?
(1) You Can Reach your Target When They Are Available
Users typically consume Facebook during their downtime. Unlike LinkedIn, which focuses on business-oriented, professional networking, Facebook was designed to be a more recreational platform where people share pictures, videos, and other content with family and friends. An important benefit of using Facebook is that you are able to reach people when they are free to engage. Casual scrolling through social media platforms has become a conventional pastime in the 21st century, and it provides companies with an attractive opportunity to reach potential leads.
(2) Your Brand Looks More Substantial
When included as part of a comprehensive advertising campaign, targeting ads on Facebook makes your brand look bigger than it is. When you advertise your personal brand and make it available on multiple platforms, it creates the notion that your business is ubiquitous — seemingly everywhere! As stated above, there are over 1 billion active accounts on Facebook. It only makes good business sense to include leveraging such a massive pool of potential customers as part of your marketing approach.
Retargeting through Facebook makes your brand, products and services hard to ignore or forget. It also helps you connect with potential customers in influential ways. To be specific, this means that by integrating a Facebook Pixel into your website, you have control over your campaigns: you can collect valuable information about the identity and behavior of your site’s visitors, and use that information to be very precise in how you target your advertisements. Having the authority to control who will see your ads and who won’t allows you to optimize the use of your marketing dollar and overcome a variety of challenges. For example, even if people unsubscribe from your email or texting chains, you still have the ability to access them, thanks to retargeting through Facebook. Today, more than 60% of social media consumption is done via mobile devices. Being mobile friendly via Facebook allows you to retarget in a way that taps into that vast population of mobile Facebook users. In short, if you are consistently present on people’s Facebook feeds, you have given yourself additional chances to win them over.
(3) You Gain People’s Trust
Whether you are targeting new leads or retargeting missed conversions, gaining people’s trust in your brand is one of the most important goals you must achieve. Because social media platforms, especially Facebook, allow for easy back-and-forth conversing between multiple accounts, you have the opportunity to build trust with potential leads by simply being present on their timelines and giving them the ability to reach you easily.
Integrating a Facebook Pixel into your website to create an audience and retargeting through Facebook can be incredibly simple, effective and lucrative marketing tools. Not only is it cost effective, but the nature of Facebook advertising capitalizes on what Facebook is all about: scrolling, liking, and sharing content — at your leisure.
So, if your target customers are scrolling through Facebook, shouldn’t you be there too?
Want to learn more about social media best practices? Download our eBook Be Social on Social Media, or contact Linda Fanaras at Millennium Integrated Marketing.
About Millennium Agency
Millennium Agency is a national, award-winning, digital, creative, content/PR, and video marketing firm. With offices in Boston and New Hampshire, our team unites creative branding and data analytics to accelerate our clients’ growth, while combining our clients’ vision with our marketing expertise to increase sales opportunities and drive brand success. From video advertising and web design to social media and PR, Millennium can guide your marketing efforts every step of the way. Contact the professionals at Millennium Agency to learn more!
Linda Fanaras is the President and Founder of Millennium Agency (www.mill.agency) located in Manchester, NH, and Boston. She can be reached at 877-873-7445 or [email protected].
If your company doesn’t have a strong digital marketing strategy in place, chances are you’re losing market share to some of your competitors who do. There is simply no better approach to modern marketing efforts than those embodied by digital lead generation, social media participation, analytics and all the other individual components that can help build your brand and establish trust in your company.
Provides a Strategy for Customer Acquisition and Retention
All your company’s strategic goals should be clearly outlined in your digital marketing strategy, along with a plan for execution of the strategy. Analytics tools can accurately measure the success of your strategy, and show you what’s working, and what needs to be tweaked. All this provides a solid foundation for your approach to marketing that can build your brand.
Promotes Customer Face Time
Digital marketing embraces interaction with customers and truly getting to know them, which is very different from yesteryear, when customers had no idea who was behind the curtain. This kind of personal touch can build your brand and establish trust, because you become an accessible person to users, someone to whom they can relate and be loyal.
Levels the Playing Field
Digital marketing makes it possible for even the smallest of the small to compete with corporate giants. In some cases, it’s even easier for micros to compete, because the face of the organization is so easy to reach. Branding does not require enormous corporate assets or marketing campaigns, it merely requires that an image or a symbol of the company become generally recognizable and memorable. Even startups can join in on the fun, if they focus on the right strategies.
Makes You Proactive, Not Reactive
Rather than reacting to consumer trends and patterns, well after their identification, the information gathered from your digital sources can help you become more proactive. Knowing user wants, needs, and pain points can help your company predict what kinds of products and services might fill those needs, and help you get ahead of the game once in a while. When all you can do is react to observed trends, you won’t often catch the crest of the wave, but will instead be caught waiting at the shoreline, when it’s already petering out.
Companies which can consistently be proactive like this, will eventually come to be seen as leaders in their markets, and that reflects positively on branding. This kind of obvious savvy and ability to stay in tune with consumers can draw consumers like a magnet, and cause them to look up to your company.
A well thought out and well executed digital marketing strategy can have continuing ripple effects, drawing in more and more followers, and gaining brand awareness, which adds even more to your company’s recognition factor and contributes to customer loyalty.
If it’s time to focus on digital marketing, using best practices, then contact Linda Fanaras, President/Strategist of Millennium Integrated Marketing.
To view the original article as published in PRiME Women, click here.
About Millennium Agency
Millennium Agency is a national, award-winning, digital, creative, content/PR, and video marketing firm. With offices in Boston and New Hampshire, our team unites creative branding and data analytics to accelerate our clients’ growth, while combining our clients’ vision with our marketing expertise to increase sales opportunities and drive brand success. From video advertising and web design to social media and PR, Millennium can guide your marketing efforts every step of the way. Contact the professionals at Millennium Agency to learn more!
Linda Fanaras is the President and Founder of Millennium Agency (www.mill.agency) located in Manchester, NH, and Boston. She can be reached at 877-873-7445 or [email protected].
The evolution of onsite-to-online shopping has forced businesses to change their approach to attracting leads. Landing pages are increasingly replacing sales reps as the catalyst for the conversion process. A landing page is a tool utilized to convert visitors into genuine sales leads. These pages are intended to entice visitors – potential customers — into sharing personal information about themselves by offering them a specific piece of content.
So, what are some key elements you should include to make your landing page as effective as possible? Here are five easy-to-follow tips and techniques to ensure that your landing page converts as many visitors as possible into true sales, leads, and paying customers.
(1) Create a Short-but-Powerful Title
Your landing page must have a compelling title. The title of your landing page is the hook that will intrigue your visitor. Without an eye-catching heading, your visitor will be inclined to hit the exit button.
The title must also reveal exactly what is being offered. In order to entice your visitor to move forward through the conversion process, you must propose a captivating offer that will make the visitor want to divulge their personal information. This will not happen if you don’t immediately grab their attention.
(2) Center Your Landing Page around Obtaining Visitor Information
Although the whole point of a landing page is to attract your visitor by offering them a specific piece of content, your predominant goal should always be to create the ability to contact your visitor, educate them on your business and convert them into a customer. In order to ensure that you obtain the critical information from your lead, you must make certain that there is nothing on your landing page that will distract them. This means that your landing page should be free of website navigation, guide menus, and off-page SEOs. This will increase the chances that the only action taken by the visitor is providing you with their information.
(3) Make your CTAs and Buttons Stand Out
Now that you have the visitor’s attention, how do you get them to take action? Your Call-To-Action (CTA) button is the second most prominent object in your landing page. A CTA essentially tells the visitor what to do. Your CTA is the equivalent of a ‘submit’ button, which sends their information to your database, and subsequently directs the viewer to the content that was promised. Your CTA should use action-oriented verbs that include enticing information about the offer. Example: If your landing page is trying to attract your visitor to try new shaving blades, it may be wise to include the words “FREE” or “FREE TRIAL” to let the visitor know the specifics of the offer. Razor blades are notoriously expensive, so letting the visitor know that the trial is free may be the perfect way to persuade him or her to pursue the offer.
(4) Keep your Information Appealing and Above the Fold
Keeping your information above the fold means that your visitor should not have to scroll down to learn the most critical elements of your offer. If the information is not right in front of them, and they must work to learn what they need to know, they will be much more likely to exit out and be on their way – and your potential lead is lost.
(5) Your ROI for Your Landing Pages Doesn’t Happen Overnight
Yes, there are basic elements that every landing page should have (catchy title, action-oriented CTA, simple but informative information, etc.). But the real power is in the specifics. Every company is different. Every offer is different. So that means every landing page must be unique. What may work for one company might not work for you.
If you find that your landing page is not producing a sufficient amount of leads, make small, incremental changes so that you can track increases and decreases in the response rate. Making too many changes at once won’t allow you to narrow down and deduce what is and isn’t working. Sometimes, something as simple as changing an action verb or increasing the size of your CTA might be enough to increase lead generation among visitors and improve customer engagement.
About Millennium Agency
Millennium Agency is a national, award-winning, digital, creative, content/PR, and video marketing firm. With offices in Boston and New Hampshire, our team unites creative branding and data analytics to accelerate our clients’ growth, while combining our clients’ vision with our marketing expertise to increase sales opportunities and drive brand success. From video advertising and web design to social media and PR, Millennium can guide your marketing efforts every step of the way. Contact the professionals at Millennium Agency to learn more!
Linda Fanaras is the President and Founder of Millennium Agency (www.mill.agency) located in Manchester, NH, and Boston. She can be reached at 877-873-7445 or [email protected].
In marketing, it’s always best not to get too comfortable with doing something one way, because before you know it, everything will change. Advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) have irreversibly rewritten the rules of Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Forget word count totals, exact-match keywords, and getting away with any black hat SEO techniques; today, your content must serve the user’s intent to stand a chance at ranking.
Google and Bing have invested huge amounts of money in AI and other machine learning technologies to make their search engines stronger, smarter, and more capable of delivering relevant, more useful results. With the help of AI, search engines are able to recognize and form connections between words to rank webpages by credibility and the usefulness of their content.
While the algorithms themselves that drive our search engines may be complex, below are 3 simple SEO do’s and don’ts you can follow to help ensure you’re found.
DO provide value-focused, user-driven content
Every business – big or small, start-up or household name – should develop and utilize a content strategy on their website. Search engines exist to provide people solutions or at the very least answers to their queries. The integration of AI in search algorithms means that pages aren’t only being judged for the quantity of their matching keywords, but also the quality of their information. Various factors, like time-spent on page, interactions/shares, and the number of natural links to your page, help search engines discern the value of your content. It makes sense that pages with high-value, informative content that serve the user’s intent would have longer visits, more shares, and be referenced on other sites.
Content that is developed for the sole purpose of search rank will actually be counterproductive to your efforts. Instead, provide value-focused, user-driven content that will answer your customers’ questions and be shared by others. Ultimately, Google rewards websites that others deem worthy of reading.
DON’T use automated, duplicate, or meaningless content
In turn, irrelevant or useless content can irreparably damage your search standings. Search engines are seeking pages that offer clear and relevant solutions that benefit the end-user. Pages that don’t accurately represent your business, your products and/or services, or fail to meet users’ objectives are going to have high bounce rates, less interactions, and few shares – demoting its value to search engines. Take for instance, content automation, can’t we all tell when a post or comment has been generated by a computer bot for the sole purpose of just publishing something? Doesn’t it feel ingenuous and often not worth your time reading?
Great SEO starts with winning content.
DO have an intuitive, mobile-friendly website design
Rankings aren’t only about content, but also the user experience. The presentation of your content can play nearly as an important role in your rankings as the content itself. In fact, a recent study by Adobe found that 38% of consumers state that content being unattractive in its layout or imagery is a key reason they stop engaging with a site.
In a sea of content, the user experience has emerged as a crucial element in earning consumer attention. This includes making sure your website has been optimized for viewing across all devices, has an intuitive content structure, and is easy to navigate.
DON’T be deceptive or try to play tricks for higher rankings
Behaviors viewed as deceptive or intended to manipulate search results are increasingly being penalized by search engines, like Google. Google’s driving motivation is to deliver the most relevant, practical results to a user in the smallest number of clicks possible. SEO strategies, such as keyword stuffing, content automation, cloaking, and doorway pages are seen as ways of misleading the consumer and can result in severe penalties or even a site being banned from Google.
DO review your website for hacking, broken links and/or malicious content
The authority of your website is often relative to the quality of your network, or rather the credibility of your inbound and outbound links. Being strategic about your linking structure on your website includes remembering to monitor them. Linking out to credible sources, signals to Google that you are providing quality content to your users – giving you a boost in rankings. In addition, internal links to similar and/or relevant content on your website helps Google learn more about you, so it knows when a query may match an answer on one of your pages. If these links get broken or link to a penalized or malicious site, your search rank can suffer.
DON’T forget to optimize your page load speed
When content is so readily available, it is important to deliver your content to searchers as quickly as possible or risk losing their attention before you’ve even had a chance to say a word. Consumers want answers now, so make sure your site loads quickly. In fact, the same Adobe study found that content that takes too long to load results in 39% of consumers stopping further engagement with your site.
For now, SEO and content marketing are inexplicably intertwined and it would be nearly impossible to try to do one without the other. However; at the end of the day, it all seems to boil down to one thing – creating value for your customers. I hope you find these SEO do’s and don’ts helpful.
This article was originally published on Prime Women.
Want to learn more about SEO do’s and don’ts? Need to enhance your content to be search engine optimized?
Contact Millennium President and Strategist Linda Fanaras at 877-873-7445 ext. 201 or connect via email at [email protected].
About Millennium Agency
Millennium Agency is a nationally recognized, top woman led B2B branding, positioning, and digital marketing firm who knows how to create value that emotionally influences your customer’s buying decision, giving you the competitive advantage. As your trusted partner in B2B software technology and manufacturing, we provide the branding and positioning framework that make an impact – so you can focus on what you do best – run your business successfully. With offices in Boston and New Hampshire, and a worldwide presence, the professionals at Millennium Agency would like to learn more about your business. Visit www.mill.agency or book time here.
Content should be viewed as a tool that provides value for your audience. It needs to be clean and provide value. Don’t overthink it. Learn how simplifying your content and establish a unifying voice that connects it all together will increase the time prospects spend on your website. Enjoy the first video of our 10 Talks series!
Is it time for a content refresh? Contact Millennium President and Strategist Linda Fanaras at 877-873-7445 ext. 201 or connect via email at [email protected].