Major 2017 SEO trends to get to grips with this year
Competition – it motivates all of us to become better at what we do. Marketers are no different, especially when they have to stay on top of the SEO game. They research the latest SEO trends; they use the best SEO tools out there. The problem is, unlike a sports competition, the goal posts for SEO are always changing. This, of course, makes the game more interesting, but also pretty frustrating for those trying to “keep up.” Looking ahead to 2017, these are some SEO trends that marketers might want to keep an eye on.
1. Dense Content Will Rise
Initially, content was provided in short little chunks – rather fluffy chunks, actually – and the same fluff was just repeated everywhere. When this ultimately proved ineffective for SEO purposes, marketers began to create volumes of lengthy content – the longer…
6 Great Content Curation Tools
They say that content is King. If that’s the case then curation has to be, at the very least, a Baron or something. Actually, scratch that. Content curation, when it’s done right, can be king too.
One need only think of products and features like Reddit, Facebook Trending or Twitter Moments to see how important content curation is to the general public. Cutting through the noise of clickbait and subpar content marketing is extremely difficult, and that’s why effective content curation can be so valuable.
Short On Time? Curate!
If you have the time, creating your own content is a powerful way to drive traffic to your site. One need only look at the stats for proof of that:
Content marketing costs 62% less than traditional marketing and generates 3x as many leads
Year on year growth of site traffic is almost 8x higher for content marketing…
Local tactics are the keys to consumer loyalty in a mobile-first world
For bricks-and-mortar businesses, loyalty programs have been a staple for decades, whether in the form of punch cards promising a free item, special sale offerings, or the now ubiquitous loyalty cards that we scan at grocery stores, pet stores, and everywhere in between. Simply put, customers think that loyalty programs are effective at getting them to return. It’s no surprise, then, that as ecommerce rose to prominence, many online businesses also instituted some variation of the loyalty program.
A problem arises today, however, when businesses think that the only way to drive customer loyalty is through such programs. But what are the alternatives? Customers are increasingly burdened by a jumble of key rings, codes, and email subscriptions telling them about special offerings and it can be a little overwhelming. There has to be another way.
One alternative to the traditional…
Chart of the day: Digital Ad Spend grows at fastest rate in 9 years
Recommended link: Latest UK online advertising spend research - IAB
In April each year the IAB and PwC publish their regular survey giving full-year figures for online advertising in the previous year.
We recommend using this annual research on online advertising to benchmark your investment in online media with other organisations in the UK at a top level.
The main headline from this years analysis which should prompt review of which channels are being used to engage audiences is about mobile.
Driven by advertisers’ need to tap into people’s rising use of mobile to watch content, digital advertising grew at its fastest rate for nine years – by 17.3% to £10.3 billion in 2016 – according to the Internet Advertising Bureau UK / PwC Digital Adspend report. The last time annual growth was higher…
Follow these SEO trends for better rankings in 2017
SEO is a very volatile industry because of the many changes that take place in the Google algorithm within a period. The algorithm set in place this month may not be the same the next. It is an always evolving algorithm that encourages SEO specialists to stay on their toes and keep abreast with updates.
Now we are well into 2017, it has become more important for specialists to look out for trends that can affect search rankings for their keywords this year.
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Optimize for Rich Answers
Although aiming…
The top strategies for retail brands looking to compete online with the digital natives and pureplays
Last year Accenture’s Love Index report discovered that 4 out of the top 5 most loved brands were Digitally Native Vertical Brand (DNVB). These are 'online pureplays' brands which are born from, and function solely in the digital landscape like Netflix and Amazon. But surprisingly, the fifth company to have made that list was Walmart due to the digital experiences that it was creating.
There’s a lot of emphasis on creating digital experiences and equally a lot of news around brick-and-mortar having hit a glass ceiling; It’s this dynamic that led the Huffington Post to recently report that nobody knows what’s going on with online shopping. We beg to differ. You do know what’s going on, the difficulties for a multichannel brand is knowing how to execute efficiently and track accurately.
If you can relate to…
The Future of British Trade with Europe: A Light at the End of the Chunnel?
With Article 50 having been triggered recently by UK Prime Minister Theresa May, Brexit is now actually happening and calls for a revote can be forgotten. The negotiations are officially underway, and guess what, uncertainty still lingers in the air like a dense, London fog. So, what lies ahead for British business owners?
Building bridges by building tunnels
When the Channel Tunnel connecting Folkestone, England and Coquelles, France was opened in 1994, it was seen as a symbol of unity between the UK and mainland Europe. Though the idea of connecting the two landmasses was rejected for years by the British during the height of their empire, minds were changed as the new economic realities of the world started to take shape after World War II.
Today, there is no question as to the importance of such a tunnel.…
Chart of the Day: How to not get lost in your customer's inbox
Subject lines are important to email marketing, but they are a complete pain in the arse. (And don't get me started on pre-headers!)
I spend a good portion of my time toiling with subject lines. Testing how they look in email clients, making sure I don't include any spam words and working on the actual copy. A common practise email marketers use, is to include a promotion in the subject line, but does it have any effect? That's what the below chart discusses.
If we look at the average for all the offers compared to no offer at all, it's clear to see that the subject lines with no offer work better with the Click-to-Open (CTO) of 9.4% compared to 7%! This disproves what email marketers have done for years. But if we think about it, it's not surprising.…
Martech tools aren't just for marketers, sales needs them too
The much-talked about disconnect between sales and marketing departments (and likewise professionals) needs to be put to bed. If you pardon the (intentional!) pun: they always have been, and always will be perfect bed companions. Let’s boil this down: the purpose of your marketing department has always been to drive sales, and connect with and engage customers with your brand.
As such, sales and marketing have always been closely linked. Nevertheless, in many businesses, they are remaining distinctly separate, often operating in silos. This approach is in direct opposition to the way modern business works. Instead, marketing and sales should come together to help join the dots between the target audience and the brand itself.
Modern technology is an integral tool in not just connecting those dots between the brand and prospects or customers, but also between the two departments. Silo-based business models…
Debunking the biggest SEO myths so you don't fall foul of them
Poor SEO, so misunderstood! These days there are so many misconceptions about SEO that it is becoming ridiculous. It is now time to shed some light on the biggest myths of SEO. Unfortunately, anyone can write anything on the internet. This is how some of the biggest myths are born. Others myths seem to be embedded in people’s heads because they haven’t done their research.
It is common to see many businesses fall for at least some of these myths. This is quite disturbing because believing in some of these myths can cause detrimental effects to your SEO campaign (or even mean businesses do not use SEO altogether).
Some of these myths are simply bad SEO practices while others are outdated due to the ever evolving nature of SEO. Most businesses don’t even know they are following these myths that could…
