Give Your Marketing A Makeover: SEO And Other Tips
In the words of Beth Comstock, ‘ marketing’s job is never done. It’s about perpetual motion. We must continue to innovate every day.’ The face of marketing has changed dramatically over the last several years, and most brands understand the need to keep up with the latest trends. Perhaps your business is in need of a marketing makeover? If so, you’re in luck. Check out these twelve marketing- savvy tips for SEO and beyond.
1 . Optimization for Google Bert
Last year Google’s latest update ‘BERT’ became an exciting new development on the SEO scene. The ‘BERT’ update involves focusing on the meaning behind the searches and their words, as opposed to just the words alone. It’s about increasing the emphasis on search intent.
Quality content is even more important to appeal to the BERT update, but what is BERT exactly? It means ‘Bidirectional Encoder Representations From Transformers’. This means that BERT encodes in multiple directions, and transforms sentences into representations that the algorithm can understand. From here, BERT can encode the words in a sentence using a relative position.
To optimize for Google BERT, all you can do is focus your efforts on search intent. Ensure that you have quality content that responds to all types of search intent from informational to transactional and commercial investigation.
2 . Improve UX
To supercharge your marketing, it’s advisable to improve your UX this year. You should focus on enhancing every stage of your user experience, beginning with the primary SERPs interaction and even continuing after the user has clicked off your website. You can continue the UX experience away from your website by using remarketing campaigns.
Using animated illustrations is one of the top UX trends for 2020. These visuals are a highly effective way to tell the story of your brand or product. ‘Micro-interactions’ are another way that companies are seeking to improve their UX design on apps and websites. An example of a micro-interaction is the ‘like’ button on various social media sites.
3. SEO automation
There are several tools available which can help you to automate your SEO, one of which is ‘SEO Rank’. With this software users can design themselves a blueprint which outlines how to improve search rankings, with minimal effort. Traffic Booster is another handy piece of software to automate SEO. It uses an algorithm that optimizes campaigns and aims to gain increased sales at lower prices. It can also be useful to gain an understanding of how your SEO is working on your site to see what you’re needing to improve on, in this case, using the likes of whitehat SEO audit services can be very beneficial.
4. It’s all about voice search
According to 99firms, ‘Global voice commerce is expected to be worth $40B by 2022.’
It’s predicted that the popularity of voice searches will begin to influence the way that searches are typed. For instance, people will start to type in the exact same way that they speak. In response, businesses must focus on, and produce content for, very specific and long-tail words. When your business is focusing on voice searches, be sure to use plenty of ‘filler words’, these automatically make the tone that little bit more conversational. Examples might be ‘for, to or the.’ Keep in mind the conversational tone that people use to speak to Amazon Alexa.
5. AI in marketing
Artificial intelligence can be used in so many different ways, from Industrial Vision Systems to allowing companies to offer customers around the clock real-time interactions. Customers don’t want to wait around for the answers they are looking for, nor do many of them want to pick up the phone. They want quick answers through your website, wherever they please. It can be challenging to provide 24/7 customer service, and that’s where chatbots come in. Deploying a chatbot on your site allows your customers to chat with a robot representative who knows all the answers! Chatbots can be programmed to respond to a huge number of queries, they can mimic normal human interaction, and they can even collect data to help you improve your marketing.
6. Augmented or virtual reality
You may have heard the terms augmented or virtual reality marketing floating around, so what’s it all about? Virtual reality is a term used for any experience that (virtually) places the individual in another (virtual) dimension, space or world. Augmented reality means putting virtual content into the real world, usually achieved by a smartphone camera. One example of augmented reality marketing was an app made by Addais where users could try on different pairs of virtual shoes, using their phones. As for virtual reality marketing, Volo built a VR application where consumers could test drive a car, with the use of an app. These types of marketing campaigns are an excellent way to inject uniqueness and fun into your branding!
7. Supercharge your marketing presentations
Do your presentations lack that wow factor? Well now is as good a time as ever to change that. When you are seeking to create an awesome marketing presentation, it’s all about emotion. You might have a not so glamorous topic to talk about, but it’s your job to make that topic interesting, appealing, and take your listeners on a journey. The best way to ensure that your presentations are top-notch is to Outsource your presentations to a PowerPoint design agency.
8. Influencer marketing
According to Business2Community, ‘ 65% of consumers discover a new brand or product through an influencer at least once a week.’ Perhaps you’re yet to hop on the influencer marketing trend ? Well, it’s not too late to get involved! Influencer marketing has gained much authority over the last couple of years, and this is because influencers have a trusted audience available for brands to tap into. Many consumers follow influencer recommendations and enjoy watching their favourite influencer try out a product. Consumers are fond of using ad blocking software online, and so influencer marketing is also a fantastic way to reach these users.
9. Instagram stories
This year, an increasing number of brands are using Instagram Stories as part of their marketing campaigns. To drive engagement on your Insta stories, your business needs to create content that shows you as relatable, human and above all, fun! It’s simple to use Instagram stories to interact with your users, by taking advantage of the features such as polls, geolocation tags, gifs and hashtags.
10. Personalization
Personalized marketing means using strategies to deliver individualized content to fully engage each user. Sometimes called one-to-marketing, this style is about connecting with prospective customers on a personal basis. The idea is to provide an enhanced customer experience from the get-go.
There are many brands out there right now who are absolutely killing it with their personalized marketing campaigns. One example is Cadburys, who produced a campaign to match a type of chocolate bar to users based on details from their Facebook profiles. Cadbury used details including location, interests and age to provide the perfect product match. According to Global Web Index, the campaign achieved a ‘ 65 % click-through rate and a 33.6 % conversion rate.’ When you sit down to perfect your latest marketing tactics, think about how you could make your campaigns more personalized.
11. Video Marketing
Of course, Instagram Stories aren’t the only way that brands are reaching out via video; there are plenty of ways to use video marketing. Many brands are using webinars to improve marketing strategies and these are an excellent way to interact with your audience in real-time.
Biteable report that ‘ 6 out of 10 people would rather watch online videos than television’. Videos are shared more than any other type of content out there. You don’t have to worry about having a huge budget when it comes to marketing videos. It’s often those which appear authentic and down to earth that are the most well-received. With this in mind, don’t try too hard with your video content, audiences like to see the real person behind the brand.
12. Visual searches
The last trend to watch out this year is visual search. Using a visual search, an individual can upload an image and use this image to perform a search, to achieve relevant results. One site who’ve already rolled this out are Pinterest. They have created a visual tool which you can use to take a snap of an item, and then find out where you can buy it on the web. When users can search for data using specific images, it’s highly likely that they will find exactly what they are looking for. Brands should get ready to optimize content to respond to these kinds of searches.
You can find the best images to upload on your website by conducting a search by image. This service will provide you with the image you’re looking for in the desired format and size. You can get your hands on the images you’re looking for in a matter of seconds by using search by image. This web-based tool can be accessed from anywhere without any hassle. It’s crucial to give proper image credits to its original creator; the reverse image search helps you extract the exact source in a couple of clicks.
To conclude
Some say marketing didn’t used to be so good at listening, but these days it certainly is! With personalization, avid user research and compelling brand stories, companies have learnt to provide their audiences with so much more than a tangible product. It’s by constantly reviewing the performance of your campaigns and using customer feedback that you’ll take your brand to exciting new heights. Let’s hope there’ll be many more exciting new developments in marketing this year.
