2017 is already well underway, and many businesses are already planning out their marketing strategies to guide their year-end goals. A key part of driving business growth is digital marketing, which delivers tangible and measurable ROI. In order to meet business goals through digital marketing, business owners and marketers alike need to stay on top of digital marketing tips, trends, and best practices.
In order to support businesses looking to boost their online traffic and leads, AIS Media co-hosts a new digital marketing series on Business Radio X. Every month, AIS Media CEO Thomas Harpointner sits down with AIS Media clients to share how digital marketing impacts their business. This month our guest was David Rones, President of Americo’s Matting Division: PromoMatting.
Here are some tips we covered to help business owners achieve top ROI from several digital marketing channels:
New Year, New Digital Marketing Strategy
Are you satisfied with the number of leads coming through your website? Are your competitors being found for your top products and services when searching online? It may be time to consider redesigning your website, but not without digital marketing in mind.
The Biggest Mistake Made During Web Design
When businesses initiate web design, whether it be for a more modern aesthetic or to reflect internal changes, they often hyper-focus on the project and lose sight of digital marketing. As a result, web traffic and conversions plummet and competitors quickly fill the online gap the business left.
We encourage business owners to look at all their online opportunities even during web design: SEO, PPC, email marketing and social media.
Web Design & SEO
Organic traffic is possibly the best traffic online because businesses don’t need to pay for their appearance. Good SEO practices can bring long-term business success, as long as properly optimized despite Google’s frequent algorithm changes.
In fact, Google recommends:
“If you’re thinking about hiring an SEO, the earlier the better. A great time to hire is when you’re considering a site redesign, or planning to launch a new site. That way, you and your SEO can ensure that your site is designed to be search engine-friendly from the bottom up.”
For more information, read the full article on Google Search Console.
If the website itself is the exterior design of a business online, then content is the interior design. SEOs can optimize and prepare content for the new website, so businesses aren’t moving outdated furniture into a brand new house (so to speak). Rely on your SEO company to optimize copy, images and videos so they are best framed for search keywords.
PPC vs SEO Long Term Performance
PPC may also be considered during the website redesign phase. PPC has more or less a fixed cost based on competitive activity, and can leverage early visits to your website. It’s also a good medium for understanding conversion rates for a new website, with ad copy and landing page relevance to your target audience. However, overtime the long-term performance of organic vs paid traffic varies greatly, as the graph below demonstrates.
Email Marketing Best Practices
The first step towards leveraging email marketing is to establish an email list. Many businesses use their website as a primary tool for collecting contact information for leads. Here are some tips and trends in email marketing to help you optimize your email marketing efforts:
- Among all digital marketing channels, email has the highest ROI
- 70% of all emails are opened on a mobile device
- Captivating email subject lines are the leading factor influencing email open rates
Social Media Digital Marketing Tips and Trends for 2017
Even if you are designing a new website, your business is still visible online through social media. Much like email marketing, social media marketing is most effective with an engaged, targeted audience. Consider relevant social media channels to reach your audience, and build up a following so that when your new website is live your audience will know and be the first to respond. Here are some additional tops and trends happening in the social media sphere:
- The fastest growing user-base on Facebook remains the parent demographic, so businesses can target this audience effectively on this social media.
- Users are not using social media channels to “search” like they would on Google. Rather, users are participating in the local “cocktail party”. Use engaging branded content to catch users when they’re not necessarily looking or expecting to see you. When highly targeted and relevant, this can connect your followers to your website for increased traffic and conversions.
- In Q4 2016, Facebook rolled out its “Recommendations” feature. This has an immediate impact on local businesses, as friends can recommend and influence their friends to visit your business. For more, watch the video.
Conclusion
In order to reach your 2017 business goals, there are several digital marketing channels that can be leveraged for success. Do you know if your website is optimized for SEO? AIS Media offers leading SEO services to put your digital marketing efforts on the right track.
Check out our full interview on Business Radio X. And make sure to watch our latest episode on SEO strategy, and stay tuned to our digital marketing series!
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Want to know how SEO-friendly your site is? How well it stacks up against some of your top competitors on Google? If it passes Google’s Mobile-Friendly test? What specific steps need to be taken to increase SEO rank, site traffic, and conversions? Contact us today by filling out our contact form, or giving us a call at 404.751.1043.
