The two major activities of any effective search engine optimization campaign are link building and content marketing. While the former has been the main tactic marketing professionals rely on for creating value for their websites, the latter has become more important due to recent algorithm changes from Google. The following is a quick overview of the inherent benefits in content marketing:
Strategies are Highly Adaptable
If you notice that some of your prime keywords are not ranking highly enough, pushing out fresh content using those keywords can help create momentum for your SEO campaign. Content marketing is adaptable and allows marketing professionals to revamp current strategies and focus on providing a boost to keywords that need help.
Online jewelry retailer Boticca.com recently tracked the impact of both Pinterest and Facebook on creating engagement, driving traffic, and generating sales for e-commerce businesses. Marketing professionals are hesitant to invest significant resources into social media because it’s seen as more of a branding strategy, but this case study provides insight on the social channel’s ability to produce tangible results.
Community Engagement
Developing your social media audience can prove to be futile if your fans are not communicating with your brand. Boticca noticed that Facebook users were far more engaged than those coming from Pinterest. Pinterest users spent 65% less time on the site and visited 44% less pages compared to their Facebook counterparts, a testament to Facebook’s ability to drive highly targeted traffic. Facebook’s robust platform encourages users to check out the site through creative posts in news feeds, whereas Pinterest is limited in this regard.
Online Advertising continues to be an important piece of any budget due to its cost effectiveness compared to traditional marketing strategies and the widespread reach of the Internet. According to the most recent Global Digital Advertising update, digital advertising continues to make progress across all online channels, such as Search Engine Marketing, Mobile Advertising, and Social Media.
Search Engine Marketing Trends
The first quarter of 2012 reported a 16% increase on overall Search Engine Marketing expenditures compared to the first quarter of 2011 in the United States. Google continues to be the dominant search engine with regards to total spend and click market share. This trend extends to most International markets as Google has cemented itself as the leading platform for Pay-Per-Click Advertising. However, Bing is an emerging thorn in Google’s side, increasing their share of revenue from Online Paid Advertising over the past year.
Choosing the right platforms for Social Media Marketing directly affects the success of any campaign. For example, developing a Pinterest strategy for a funeral parlor will prove to be futile and a waste of resources. A platform that marketing professionals are beginning to incorporate into their strategic plans is LinkedIn. However, businesses are still figuring out how to properly exploit this resource for their brand. In fact, the Social Media giant recently announced that they had over 150 million registered users. With LikedIn’s global reach, active user base, and unrivaled professional structure, the question then becomes: how can my brand use LinkedIn?
Explore New Opportunities with LinkedIn
This virtual networking platform allows your brand to reach out to specific businesses for lead generation purposes. Joining industry groups, participating in discussions, and reaching out to new contacts will help increase your brand’s followers on LinkedIn. This is uniquely ideal for organizations that need to increase their exposure and want to incorporate Social Media Optimization in their sales activities.
How often do you search with Google or Bing on the go with your smartphone? It might be more often than you think as recent research done by Marin reported that Google earned $2.5 billion in revenue from mobile platforms in 2011. In fact, early estimates indicate that this number will grow exponentially to $20 billion by 2016. Evidently, the ubiquity of portable devices is making it easier for consumers to search for products and services anywhere in the world and marketing professionals need to embrace the technology before they get left behind.
Smartphone and Tablet Usage is on the Rise
By June 2013, it’s expected that over one billion mobile devices will be used globally, indicating that smartphone and tablet technology will dominate the market over the next couple of years. The rapid adoption of smartphones has made traditional ‘dumbphones’ obsolete due to the advanced features provided on the former, ranging from interactive apps to high-speed Internet access. Tablet usage has increased considerably because its relatively light weight and high-resolution screen provides consumers with an alternative to the desktop experience.
Search Engine Optimization is quickly becoming a key component of all marketing budgets. However, many SEO strategies are poorly executed due to businesses being unaware of the intricacies involved in creating successful campaigns. Marketing professionals need to understand the key components of building a proper strategy before investing in online marketing.
Know Your Target Market
Before doing any type of marketing, it’s essential to develop a profile of your target audience: this will be applied to understand the searching behaviours of your potential clientele. This is an essential step in avoiding the optimization of keywords that will not bring targeted traffic to your website. For example, simply optimizing for the term ‘contractor’ for a commercial contractor in Montreal is problematic because that keyword is simply too ambiguous and far too competitive to ever see results.
Developing a social presence has become a necessary component of any integrated Online Marketing strategy for business. As a result of investing in Social Marketing efforts,a recent study found that 88% of respondents noticed increased exposure for their business and 62% reported an increase in search engine rankings. Not only is Social Media effective on its own for branding and credibility purposes, the increasing influence on search engine rankings makes it a viable marketing investment. The following are some beginner’s tips that will help leverage Social Marketing efficiently for your brand:
Remain Active
Simply creating pages on the largest social platforms will prove to be futile if you do not consistently update your profiles. It will be easier to build up an organic following of highly targeted fans the more you engage in social posting and blogging.
Choose Your Platforms Wisely
When developing your budget for Internet Marketing, choosing in which strategies to invest may be your biggest challenge. Depending on your business model and target audience, determining how marketing dollars should be allocated to multiple tactics can become overwhelming. According to the State of Digital Marketing report organized by Wedmarketing123, SEO, Social Media, and PPC Advertising received the most attention from B2B and B2C models.
SEO is still the ultimate lead generator
Search Engine Optimization, typically the foundation of any online marketing campaign, was cited by most respondents to have the greatest impact in lead generation. In comparison, Pay-Per-Click Advertising and Social Media Marketing were number two and three respectively. This is no surprise considering website traffic was the most favoured indicator of digital marketing success by both B2C and B2B companies.
Results from Webmarketing123 State of Digital Marketing Report
Photo by kentbrew at http://www.flickr.com/photos/kentbrew/
Social Media is growing at an alarming rate, and every day there seems to be another entrant into the market dominating the headlines. However, no platform has become an Internet sensation as quickly as Pinterest has become over the past year. Marketers are only beginning to learn how to properly exploit Facebook and Twitter for their marketing efforts. Pinterest is now the “new kid on the block” for the following reasons:
- Dating back to May 2011, the amount of total unique visitors increased from 418,000 to an astronomical 11.7 million, outpacing the growth of both Facebook and Twitter compared to their launches. This growth is even more impressive considering members can only register on an invite-only basis.
By Jonathan Berthold on