How to optimize your content for Google’s ever-changing search results
Google’s search results are constantly being updated. With new features being tested and added on a regular basis, it can be hard to keep up with the rate of change. In order to gain as much visibility as possible on Google for your business or brand, you need to keep on top of these changes and work out how best to optimize your website for the ever-expanding opportunities (and challenges) that Google Search presents.
As Dave Chaffey pointed out in his Chart of the Day from July on the incredible shrinking organic SERPs, these updates and additions of features to the search results can often mean that the standard organic listings that as marketers and SEO professionals we have always focused on are pushed further and further down the page.
[si_guide_block id="108203" title="Download our Premium Resource – Search Marketing Trends 2018" description="Search…
4 Smart ways for frugal small businesses to use online marketing
Competing against larger competitors in your niche or sector is difficult at the best of times. It’s not always a level playing field either. When the bigger competitor with greater revenue enjoys a more substantial marketing budget, it’s tougher for a small business like yours to compete.
The good news is that when it comes to digital marketing, it doesn’t always require huge marketing budgets to make a meaningful impact with the people who count. Where once TV advertising or full-page newspaper advertisements took aim at a large chunk of the market, your smaller business can be nimbler and more targeted in its approach.
Here are four smart ways that small businesses on a tighter budget can use digital marketing for continued growth:
1. Use social media to dominate your niche
Social media is a confusing…
Introducing the periodic table of linking building and acquisition
This article takes a look at the various levels of link building tactics commonly known throughout the SEO and digital marketing industry to address their relevance in today’s market. Backlinks remains a pillar of SEO ranking success, although the methodology behind acquiring them is ever-changing. Keep up to speed with the best practice for sculpting a healthy backlink profile with this simple and easy-to-follow guide.
Is link building still relevant for successful SEO?
Yes, but not in the same way it was 10 years ago. The algorithms no longer rely solely on the quantity of backlinks to rank websites in search results. Experts still agree that backlinks are critical for conquering SEO, however, many other factors now come into play - localization, mobile, contextualization of on-site content to name but a…
How to get better results from your online content marketing strategy
Building a profitable and successful company is no easy task. Even with a great idea/product, incredible staff to bring it to fruition, and all the drive in the world, if you are unable to connect with consumers then the fact is that it just won’t get off the ground.
This is exactly why it’s so important that you also consider your content marketing strategy. Your strategy needs to address one very important question, which is "what is the purpose of your content". Why are you creating the content in the first place?
In order to have a clear answer for this question, you need to fully understand the wants and needs of your consumers, which means there needs to be a research and discovery process in place. So how exactly do you…
Anything that affects the performance of content should be a content creator’s business (even if not directly)
Content makes the digital world go around. It helps drive greater traffic to businesses, generate lead growth, and improve conversion rates.
But content that can achieve all that requires great planning and strategizing. En route content creators run into several roadblocks.
By content creator, I mean anyone who creates content. That could be a dedicated team, a freelancer, or a new business owner who does all the digital marketing themselves, of which content creation is a part.
[si_guide_block id="5651" title="Download our Premium Resource – Content marketing strategy guide" description="Less than half of businesses have a content marketing strategy, meaning they're missing out on the opportunity to plan, manage, and optimize their content marketing."/]
With that in mind, I’m presenting a wide variety of challenges that content creators face. Some are specific to content creation, while others may…
Mobile experiences are now the norm
Smartphones are everywhere, and they’ve grabbed our attention. Maybe even too much! Based on seeing my teenagers’ faces almost constantly buried in their screens, I’m sure mobile website usage will ramp-up much further in the future.
So, when we do conversion design we need to be mindful of this reality. We need to realize that the smartphone is not where the conversion happens, but more often where it starts - the first or second touchpoint - especially when it comes to lead-generation usage scenarios, but also for e-commerce.
In this post, I first highlight how mobile user experiences differ from their desktop counterparts. Then I share my top four do’s, followed by my top four dont’s of mobile conversion design. Follow this guidance and other mobile best practices and your site will soon see higher…
The way you design and code the emails can either create barriers or remove them
Emails are getting more and more popular with each passing day. However, it still needs work to make email marketing an inclusive place that everyone can use and understand. The way you design and code the emails can either create barriers or remove them.
[si_guide_block id="5508" title="Download our Premium Resource – Email marketing strategy guide" description="This comprehensive guide shows you how to take your email marketing strategy to the next level, covering a lot more than tips to improve your creative and copy, although we do cover this too."/]
Great email design starts by making it work for everyone. Everyone here includes the ‘specially abled’ individuals who perceive the world differently than the average user. Design does not simply imply how something looks. It surely is visually impressive, but it also meets the real needs of your readers.
I…
How to boost traffic to your website in the short term, and keep your SEO high going forward.
Search engine optimization (SEO) is a vital and ongoing consideration for any website owner. It doesn’t matter if your website is a personal passion project, is supporting a physical business, or is serving as an e-commerce business, you need to maintain a decent SEO score if you’re to have any hope of making it in the big leagues. The good news is that there are a number of things you can do on your own initiative that will generate organic traffic to your website, while simultaneously bringing your SEO score up.
If you are still relatively new to the world of SEO, the following tips are also useful for developing a keener understanding of how SEO works. A lot of newcomers make the mistake of thinking…
Search engines are now using data-driven factors to determine how relevant your website is to a particular search query
The practice of search engine optimization (SEO) has experienced monumental changes over the course of the last 15 years. When SEO first broke onto the scene, it was quickly discovered that webmasters could manipulate search results and make their websites rank well merely by packing their target keywords into the website as many times as possible – a practice known as “keyword stuffing”.
This majorly skewed and distorted Google’s and Bing’s search rankings, since low-quality, “spammy” websites were quickly able to outrank reputable and relevant websites. In response to this unfavourable outcome, these search engines rolled out several rounds of algorithm updates, permanently changing the way in which websites are ranked.
Presently, Google and Bing each use hundreds of different factors – with varying levels of importance – to rank websites, helping to ensure…
Where is the digital advertising industry today?
When the digital advertising industry broke out, many digital marketers used to rave about the fact that it’s much more transparent and traceable than traditional forms of advertising, such as radio and TV. Today, the digital advertising world makes up almost half of the advertising industry and is faced with some challenges, of which, transparency and traceability seem, ironically, to be holes in the system manifesting in issues like ‘ad fraud’ for instance.
The estimated cost of fraud in digital advertising in 2018 is around $19 billion and that figure is expected to grow by over 230% by 2022 to hit $44 billion (statista), according to the current variables. Much of the losses come from ‘non-human traffic’ or what’s known as ‘bot traffic’ but there are also other types of waste like ad-blocking software. Fraud losses will amount to 22% of video spending, according to…
