Posts in "SEO"

Internet Marketing Forecast for 2021

Although the fundamentals of an optimized website with quality content will always be important, internet marketing methods change frequently. That’s why if you’re a small or medium business owner it is important to turn to the experts who are on top of the latest trends. Using outdated techniques will not only bring poor results and waste your time, but in some cases may even harm you online presence.

There are a number of changes and trends to take note of for 2021. Here’s some of what we forecast:

Targeting Mobile Traffic

Internet Marketing Forecast 2016

The last few years have been huge for apps and the mobile web. People just aren’t sitting at their desktops anymore, in fact Google received more mobile traffic last year than any other source. And this trend is only going to increase in 2021.

What this means for your website is that it absolutely must be mobile friendly, or as Google likes to call it “responsive.” Failure to do this is not only going to turn users away (because the site doesn’t look good on their device), but Google will also drop you down the rankings in favour of sites that are mobile-friendly.

In terms of marketing it is therefore also wise to ensure any paid ads are targeting mobile users. The larger platforms like Facebook ads or Google AdWords do this as standard.

Mobile Commerce

If you sell products directly from your website then you may already be aware of the increasing number of people who buy products using their mobile devices. A mobile friendly store is one thing, but in 2021 more business owners are going to make the jump to a full blown app solution. With all of the leading online retailers offering user-friendly apps, it’s an experience consumers are beginning to expect.

Targeting Wearable Traffic

While mobile traffic will dominate this year, traffic from people using wearable devices like smart watches will begin to emerge more strongly as well. Some of the same standards of mobile-friendliness apply to wearables (responsive web designs cater to all screen sizes), but we predict wearables will start to demand some of their own unique optimization requirements.

We also expect that similar to mobile ads, there will be wearable specific advertising options to market your business in the near future.

Video as a Marketing Method

Last year YouTube continued its place as one of the most visited sites on the web and the premiere destination for video content, and there’s no sign of that changing. Using video as medium for marketing will continue to grow in 2021, as both direct marketing (commercials or ads on existing videos) but also as a content platform for brands and businesses. If you site doesn’t feature video content then now’s the time to start.

Data suggests that users are often more engaged by video than text, and visitors will stay longer on pages that have video content. From product information, to FAQs, reviews and more – video should be a part of your overall web presence.

Social Searching

We all know how important social media is for marketing your business and brand, but it’s rare that we consider a Tweet or Facebook post to be a long term traffic generator. Even if it goes viral the buzz tends to die down in a few days. It’s more of any ongoing process. This may all be poised to change in 2021 with the refining of “social searching.”

This term can mean different things, but in general it’s referring to the ability to search social media effectively. Facebook for example is currently working on a revamp of its own search engine that will allow users to find historic posts more easily.

The major search engines are also constantly revising how they should show social media posts in the search results. Could 2021 be the year we begin optimizing social media posts to appear prominently in social searches?

Social Media Diversification

As with everything else on the web social media is always evolving. While a Twitter and Facebook account might have been suffice in previous years, 2021 is the year where marketing on social media really diversifies. This means considering looking further afield to the likes of Snapchat which is now ranked the third biggest social network.

There is also a trend towards live streaming apps like Periscope and Blab, which offer a brand new avenue for marketing in real time.

Content is still King

No matter what happens in 2021, quality content is still going to be the primary factor in attracting customers to your website. This is still what search engines will pick up, it’s still what you will be linking to, and it’s still what people want to read. Providing users with the information or products they desire (preferably both) is what will still set you apart from the competition.

Email is still Queen

While everyone seems to be outwardly focussed on social media email marketing is as strong as ever, and it remains one of the best returns on investment if done right. Like web pages your email campaigns must be optimized to appear correctly on all devices, as around half of all emails are opened on mobiles.

Interactive Content

While content is still king, some of the ways that content is being delivered are changing. There is a sure move towards interactivity and visuals to compliment the SEO optimized written content. Slideshows, Informative infographics, videos that prompt users to click and make decisions, webinars where you address your audience, Twitter Q&As, and other delivery methods are giving internet marketing a new lease of life and engaging users like never before.

Internet Marketing 101 for Business Owners

With the rise of internet connectivity, social media and smart devices, internet marketing is now one of the primary elements of a successful business marketing strategy. Whether you’re targeting a global audience or simply people within your local community, using the web is an efficient and cost effective platform to do so.

Of course in 2016 most business owners will be aware of this, but applying it to your day to day operation is not as straight forward as it might seem.

So you have a website, but how do you get people to visit it? You’ve been posting away on Twitter, but how do you keep your followers engaged? You have a budget to pay for online advertising, but how do you get the ads up and running?

If you’ve asked some of these questions and others, then you may want to keep reading. Internet marketing can be broken up in to 5 key elements, which combined with the help of a professional internet marketing company, will ensure you’ll reach the audience you desire.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

If you want your website to show up in search engines like Google when people search for terms related to your business, then you’re going to have to speak its language. SEO is a combination of different webpage tweaks and principals that help Google interpret the content and rank it against all of the other websites with similar content. Traffic sent by search engines is known as “organic” and is one of the most valuable sources of traffic you can get. Why? Because if done correctly it means the user is actively seeking the information or product that you provide. This means an increase in sales!

To be ranked well in search engines you need high quality and informative content, coded with all of the appropriate tags, as well as backlinks from other sites so Google knows that others also value the content.

This is very much the lifeblood of most websites. If you aren’t getting hits from Google, the website is essentially useless at generating customers.

A professional internet marketing company can help you apply the basic principals and formulate a long term strategy for bringing in consistent organic search traffic.

Search Engine Marketing (PPC)

PPC is short for Pay Per Click, which is a commercial form of advertising that runs alongside the organic search results. While SEO can take time to bring success (though when it does it is usually recurring), PPC can bring instant success because there is no crawling and ranking of your pages. Your ad is live almost right away, regardless of whether Google’s algorithm thinks it is a great page or not at the time.

Shopping Online

You are charged for every click that the ad generates, and ads are based on the search terms you bid on. So if you’re selling phone cases you may choose the search term “buy smart phone case” and whenever somebody searches this term and they click your ad beside the regular results you will pay a fee. This is determined by your own budget, though if many other marketers are paying for the same term, the cost will be higher. You’ll need to ensure that your ad is genuine and engaging, so that you can make a profit.

Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO)

Conversion Rate Optimization can relate to PPC or any form of internet marketing in general. The conversion rate is the percentage of people that click on your link or ad that actually buy a product or complete the desired action you want them to (sign up to your site, use your service, redeem a coupon etc).

Optimization is the process of getting this rate as close to 100% as possible. With ads you pay directly for like PPC it is clear why you would want high conversion rate. What’s great about platforms like Google AdWords is that you can easily track ads that are the most successful so you can refine the process. For example you may notice a high conversion rate for “buy smart phone cases” but not “buy cell phone covers” so you may choose to drop it altogether or change the wording of the ad.

This can be a very experimental process, however monitoring the data will allow you to learn what’s working over time. Internet marketers from an expert team will have the experience to keep things running smoothly.

Email Marketing

Email Marketing was one of the first forms of internet marketing and is still one that brings results today. However because it has been heavily abused over the years by spammers and scammers, you should never just buy a list of email addresses or find them yourself by Googling. In most cases paid for lists are out of date or even fake, and most email clients will now recognize unsolicited spam and send it directly to the spam folder.

Email marketing should be a secondary process where you can follow up with an existing customer. If they sign up to buy something encourage them “opt in” with their email address. Or you can promote a “newsletter” through your site as well.

Following this route allows you to build a list of people who are genuinely interested in what you have to offer, which in turn makes email blasts with offers and other information that much more worthwhile and successful.

There are many professional tools available to manage email lists and newsletter/marketing content.

Social Media Marketing (SMM)

When internet users are not actively searching for information on search engines or checking emails, they’re probably on social media chatting with friends or following pages and people related to their interests. While they might not be in “buy mode”, this is still a prime place to remind them of your existence and build brand awareness. Think of it as a more efficient form of the roadside billboard or shop window notice, with the ability for the information to be shared to thousands of people in minutes.

From a straight shooting product launch announcement, to a quirky take on something in the news, to handling customer feedback – social media allows you to stay connected with your audience, building trust over time.

There’s no one single method for approaching social media and each platform is different, so it’s important to learn the ins and outs of each one.

Facts about Brands that’ll Make Your Hair Stand on End

It’s all good having a killer product or awesome service, but without a brand to back it up you can only go so far. But what is a brand?

A brand is the unique name and image that you cultivate around your business. You’re not a store that sells shoes, you’re “Skyrocket Shoes” providing “the best priced shoes in the whole universe.”

Ok, maybe your brand won’t be so cheesy but it’s important to differentiate yourself from other similar businesses, even if the only real difference is your brand name, logo and tagline. Over the years customers will grow to trust your brand and if you’ve marketed it successfully, the brand should become instantly recognizable. There are hundreds of cola drinks, but everybody knows Coca Cola right? Part of that is its taste, but a huge factor is their success in branding.

In 2015 one of the most important factors in building your brand is the internet. If you don’t Brandshave a professional and easy to use website, a strong and active social media presence, and aren’t making use of targeted online advertising, your brand awareness will be much less than the competition.

An experienced internet marketing company can handle your online brand for you so you can focus on other areas of your business. They will optimize your site for search engines so your brand is more prominent in the search results, engage existing and potential customers on social media to build awareness and loyalty for your brand, and manage advertising campaigns like Google AdWords to bring you direct traffic and sales.

If you want to achieve your business goals, here are some facts about brands that speak for themselves:

Without a Brand Customers Won’t Return

No matter what type of business you run, without consistent branding you are not going to be memorable to customers. This ranges from literally sticking your brand logo on your products, to engaging customers online. Without a brand they’ll forget who you are and won’t return, and they certainly won’t be telling their friends about you.

Social Media Works

According to the Altimer Group the average large brand has 178 social media accounts! This might not be feasible for you, but as long as you have a presence on platforms like Facebook and Twitter you’re on the right track. Social media allows you to interact and build a relationship with customers. Over time this could grow in to a thriving community. Not everything you post should be about your products or services, but everything you post will help improve your brand image and awareness.

Brands are Built by Happy Customers

A positive brand image is created by customers after they’ve had a positive experience. This means your customer service and products has to be top notch. According to a 2011 Customer Experience Improvement study, 89% of Consumers go to a competitor after a poor customer experience. So treat them right, engage their queries on social media, and they will promote your business for you (Don’t forget to use their testimonials on your site).

Call in the Experts

The majority of business and website owners that attempt to build their brand online and do their own internet marketing will never put 100% effort it. This is why it’s important to hire an internet marketing company who have the expertise and cutting edge tools to do it for you. This is their job, and they can put 100% in while your effort is focused on the other core aspects of your business.

Why You Need more than Good Content for Internet Marketing

The core of any website and online business is good content. You have to have pages that people genuinely want to view and that search engines see as high quality. There are no tricks, you can’t fool people in to thinking you have good content. If they don’t like it they won’t come. If you fall at this first hurdle you are not going to get any hits or sales.

What constitutes good content will vary from site to site, but it needs to be informative, truthful, engaging, and detailed enough for its purpose. If you were selling shoes for example nobody is going to get any value from a generic article about shoes, or a blank sales page. But if you had a detailed analysis of what makes a good running shoe, examining the different brands and features, why some are better than others, and you backed up your claims with citations – real people and Google are going to be glad they found the page.

However in today’s online world, simply having good content is not going to make your website a success. You need to know how to optimize the content and market it effectively. This is where a professional internet marketing company can help.

They will have all of the technical knowledge required to get your content visible to search Internet Marketing Specialistengines, to effectively market it to your audience via social media, and to manage ad campaigns so that your budget is never wasted.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

You may have the single greatest article on the internet but unless Google is aware, it’s not going to matter. An expert will know how to fine tune your content for targetable keywords, how to code the page with technical elements like headings and image tags, and various other methods so it has the best possible chance at ranking high in Google search and bringing you more traffic.

Social Media Marketing

Likewise you may have a great product or page that’s worth promoting, but simply pasting a link on social media is not going to entice people to click it. There are certain methods and techniques to make content stand out. You also need to engage with followers and build trust, instead of going directly for the hard sell. This takes time and skill regardless of how good the content is.

PPC Campaigns

Online ad campaigns can be very effective (like AdWords), especially when you have good quality content on the landing page. But you need to understand the technical side of these platforms, which are often overwhelming for beginners. You need to know how to target users, how to build a good Quality Score, and how to interpret the data and alter the campaigns accordingly every day. This can only be achieved through experience.

Conclusion

High quality unique content is fundamental in building your brand and achieving your goals. However hiring a professional internet marketing company ensures that you’re making the most out of that content, by utilizing their years of technical online experience.

How Google’s New Mobile-friendly Search Results will Impact Your Website

Google rolled out its new mobile-friendly algorithm on April 21st, 2015, with the aim of improving the web for mobile users. To that end, sites that are compliant with their new mobile friendly best practises have been given a boost in the search results over websites that are not very accessible on mobile devices.

For example a page coded for a large screen may end up being outranked by a site that is easily viewable on the screen of an iPhone.

To fully understand how this may impact your business Web Marketing Army answers your questions:

1) Are mobile rankings separate from desktop rankings?

Yes, the default search results shown toGoogle Mobile-friendly Update users of mobile devices are different from those shown to desktop users. This means the changes to the algorithm will only impact your site’s position in the search results of the mobile version. If somebody searches your keyword on their PC, your site will still be in the same position. If your site is already optimized for mobile devices it may have jumped up the mobile search rankings already.

2) Does this impact each page individually or my entire website?

Each individual page is taken in to account, meaning if one page from your site is optimized well for mobile devices it will rank well in mobile search, but if another page isn’t it will rank better on desktop search.

3) How can I tell if my pages are optimized for mobile?

It is now easy to see whether your site’s pages are considered mobile-friendly by accessing the “Mobile-Friendly Test” from your Google Webmaster Tools account. You can run this test page by page or view an overall Mobile Usability report for your entire website. This is dependent on the last time the site was indexed. The report will list the number of pages with errors and what they are. For example, the font size being too small, or the use of flash content which mobile browsers can’t read. If you go through this list and make changes accordingly, your site should become more mobile-friendly in Google’s eyes.

4. If I have yet to make mobile-friendly changes to my site how long does it take for them to be recognized once I do?

Unlike standard Google search updates mobile-friendly rankings are determined every time your page is crawled and indexed. Meaning if you make changes to your pages to make them more mobile-friendly today and Google crawls them tomorrow, it will recognize those pages right away. If Google tends to crawl your site slowly you can speed the process up in Webmaster Tools by using the “Fetch as Google” and “Submit to Index” features, for each URL you have updated. To do this in bulk you can simply resubmit your sitemap, which might already be setup automatically anyway.

5. How quickly are the new mobile search results finalized? When will I notice changes in traffic following April 21st?

April 21st is the initial roll out date, but the mobile search rankings will not be finalized for another week or so as Google continues to crawl the web and find mobile friendly pages. You won’t notice significant traffic changes until Google crawls your site and other sites in your niche.

Conclusion

Since mobile devices are now a very common method for browsing the internet it is important for you to follow Google’s guidelines and make your site more mobile-friendly. Failure to do so may cause you to lose traffic and sales.

How Paid Search Can Keep You out of Trouble

As a business with a website your primary goal is getting as much genuine traffic as possible that converts in to sales. By genuine we mean real people who have shown an interest in what you have to offer. It’s surprising how many new website owners fall for the trap of buying traffic, without even knowing the source. These cheap packages are usually fake bot generated hits, or worthless hits from expired domains.

One of the most lucrative sources of real traffic is from search engines. This can fall under paid search or organic search. Paid search is particularly beneficial if you need traffic and sales right away.

What is Organic Search?

Organic search has traditionally been the core driver of traffic on the internet. The likes of Google crawl the web, indexing pages and ranking them for search terms, based on the content and a range of other factors.

In order to have success with organic search your site needs to have been established for several months and contain a moderate amount of content. Gradually searchers will stumble on to a page when Google believes it to be one of the most relevant pages for search terms.

While generally this is an automatic process when you launch a website, to rank highly for competitive search terms it is important to implement a search engine optimization strategy, which can be accomplished by hiring a professional internet marketing company.

What is Paid Search?

Google and other search engines also offer premium ad positions alongside regular search results that advertisers bid on.

Paid Search

Perhaps the best thing about this is that it’s always there as a backup in case you run in to trouble with organic search or other methods of generating traffic. Once a campaign is up and running the hits will be instant, so there’s no waiting around to see the payoff.

You can also target specific geographical locations, which is especially beneficial if you only serve a local area.

Though there are certain quality guidelines, paid search is not driven by the content of your pages, but rather how much you are willing to spend. This means you can be on the first page of results straight away (though paid results are distinguishable for organic results).

For example if you had a website selling health foods, you might bid on the search term “Acai Berries” Depending on your budget your ad will then be featured in a number of prominent spots on the first page, alongside regular search results for that term.

Data suggests that paid search ads are clicked more frequently when the search term displays “high commercial intent” meaning the searcher is ready to buy a product and has searched a term like “Buy Acai Berry”

If you’ve only just launched a website you may decide to use paid search to get an initial flow of traffic while your content is still being indexed and ranked. This is also practical if you don’t actually have much content at all.

Also if after several months or even years you’re not getting the organic search rankings you’d hoped for, you might turn to paid search to gain that extra exposure.

In normal circumstances paid search should only be one factor in your overall strategy. A professional internet marketing company will help you balance paid search, with SEO, social media management, and other forms of paid advertising. However if you are having trouble generating traffic, paid search brings immediate results.

Where Internet Marketing is Headed in the Next Five Years

As long as the internet is around and businesses need to drive sales or traffic, hiring an internet marketing firm will remain an important part of the puzzle. However internet marketing is not always going to look the same as it does now. For example before the 2000s there was no social media in the way we view it today. In fact even 10 years ago Myspace was only just becoming popular, Facebook was still being developed, and Twitter had not even been conceived.

Today many businesses couldn’t even imagine not having a social media presence as part of their marketing efforts. But the internet evolves and in order to survive businesses must evolve with it.

Internet marketing companies are more savvy now than they’ve ever been, when it comes to looking ahead and adopting new strategies for their clients. So what can we expect in the next 5 years from internet marketing?

All about Images

With web users being exposed to a record amount of information and ads, it’s increasingly important to keep things simple and visual, especially for those swiping away on mobile devices. The most successful campaigns on social media use big images and simple calls to action.

In terms of websites, people’s attention spans are getting shorter, so content needs to reflect this by being more concise and visual. With the rise of sites like Buzzfeed, which popularized the list based blogging method, it’s clear that this only going to become more prevalent in content marketing.

More Mobile Targeting

In the western world almost everybody has a smart phone, but it has still taken time for mobileOnline Marketing ad campaigns, apps, and mobile optimized web pages to catch up. This will only increase over the next 5 years, and there’s no telling the novel ways in which marketers will begin targeting phone users.

Research shows that 95% of people on the planet now have a mobile phone, 21% of which are “smart.” This is expected to increase to 50% by 2018 – making smart phone targeting an important aspect of internet marketing.

Easier Targeting the Right Audience

Internet marketing companies use a lot of powerful techniques and tools to target your desired audience, and this will only get more precise as the years go on. The internet itself is becoming much more segmented. If you wanted to, you could probably find a podcast for every hobby or subject there is. That also means there’s an advertising outlet for every product.

As the tracking of users and the interpretation of that data becomes more advanced, internet marketing should soon reach pinpoint precision.

Google’s Approach to Social Media

Google search honcho Matt Cutts took the SEO world by storm in 2010 when he began using the term “social signals” and revealed the search engine was beginning to count social media activity in its rankings. Some internet marketers jumped the gun a little and believed that social media links and their viral appeal was now directly impacting the positions of web pages.

In 2014 Cutts clarified that Google’s crawlers weren’t necessarily treating social media any different than other web pages, and that it wasn’t practical to track viral appeal through social media, because the likes of Twitter and Facebook move too fast and are not permanent.

This might suggest that Google had fully intended to go in that direction, but the technicalities didn’t work themselves out. In 5 years it’s likely they will have perfected a new approach to using social media in their rankings. This will have a big impact on SEO and internet marketing.

The Benefits of Internet Marketing for Small and Medium Sized Businesses

Unlike large corporations, small and medium sized businesses do no have the funds for elaborate advertising and marketing campaigns such as television commercials or celebrity endorsements. The budget has to be spent wisely to ensure that the right audience is targeted, in the most effective manner.

While taking out local newspapers ads, handing out flyers, and other traditional marketing techniques still have their place, internet marketing has quickly become a key method for small and medium sized businesses to reach new customers.

If you own such a business, there are a number of reasons why you should consider hiring an internet marketing company to promote your brand online, today:

Cost Effective

Internet marketing – which may consist of search engine optimization for your website, building a social media presence, and direct online advertising – is much more cost effective than its offline equivalents. You can reach thousands of extra people at a fraction of the price it would cost for a commercial on the radio or an ad in a well circulated publication.

Better Targeted

Not only is internet marketing cheaper than traditional marketing, but online campaigns are Digital Marketingoften much more targeted than offline campaigns. Take for example online advertising platforms like Google AdWords or Facebook Ads.

AdWords allows you to choose the keywords a user will have to search on Google, in order for your ad to be displayed. So if you sell “Heavy Duty Men’s Trousers”, you can reach only the people that search for that phrase or related keywords.

Taking out an ad in a big newspaper is going to cost a lot of money, but you will reach thousands of people who do not care about “Heavy Duty Men’s Trousers.” That’s not a good return on investment.

Facebook Ads even allow you to define the interests, ages and other demographics of your audience.

Hiring an internet marketing company to handle such campaigns will ensure you only reach people who are genuinely interested in your business, targeting them with pinpoint precision.

Builds an Audience

Developing a social media presence on Twitter, Facebook and others, creates an ongoing relationship with your customers, which can result in trust and loyalty to your brand.

These platforms are ideal for interacting with customers, running promotions and announcing key business information like product launches or offers, as well as sharing interesting stories relating to your industry.

Keeping track of your online audience, both on social media and other marketing channels, provides invaluable data that is simply not available with traditional marketing methods.

Therefore a professionally managed social media presence is an important element of success in the modern world. Over time you will learn about your audience, they will learn about you, and your business will grow.

Increases Sales

The ultimate benefit that combines all of the above, is an increase in sales or interest in your service. This is the primary goal of every business.

Whether your customers are driven directly through online advertising, organically through search engines to your website, or from a relationship on social media – a well crafted internet marketing strategy will improve your bottom line.

Outsourcing this to an expert internet marketing company will ensure you reap all of the benefits, while not sacrificing the time you need to spend on the day to day activities of your business.

Advantages of Outsourcing Your Internet Marketing

Whether your website is a venture itself, or an outgrowth of a traditional bricks and mortar business, internet marketing is a key factor in your success in 2015. Simply buying a domain name and putting up a few pages is not going to cut it. People need to know you exist and learn to trust your online brand.

While there are always things that can be done yourself to build awareness for a website, such as opening social media accounts or starting a blog, outsourcing your internet marketing strategy to a professional company has a number of key benefits.

Time Saving

Internet marketing will quickly become a time consuming process if you do it right. You’ll need to manage and update blogs and social media accounts with engaging posts, carry out effective advertising campaigns, build relationships with other websites, and optimize your site for search engines. All of this work is on top of your daily responsibilities, so you can easily end up doing a poor job because you don’t have the time, or worse, end up neglecting other important areas.

Outsourcing all of this to an internet marketing company allows you the time to focus on the core aspects of the business and expand in to other areas.

It will also reduce stress and increase productivity.

Specialized Services

Everybody with a business knows some basics about advertising and promotion, but the internet can be a highly technical place. Perhaps you can come up with an eye catching ad or engaging Tweet, but do you know how to target keywords that convert and rank high in search engines, or navigate Google AdWords and maintain a high Quality Score?

Outsourcing your internet marketing opens you up to a wide range of specialized services that would usually be out of your reach.

Real Results

It’s one thing to have a hobby site that you share with friends, but if your site is part of a business venture you can’t afford to do an amateur job at marketing it. Outsourcing this responsibility to a professional company ensures that you will get real measurable results.

While your business may be selling shoes, their business is promoting websites. If you want your online project to be successful, investing in professionals will pay off in the long run.

Not only will you get results but you’ll also be taught how to interpret such results.

Streamlined

Outsourcing to one company that will handle your entire internet marketing needs is an Internet Marketingefficient strategy to take. Trying to use one freelancer here for one purpose, and another over there for something else, will quickly become a hassle and will not bring the same kind of unified results.

Furthermore leading internet marketing companies have more resources than individuals and are able to make use of cutting edge research tools and marketing related software. This is not only more accurate and efficient at the planning stages of the marketing strategy, but will ultimately lead to better results.

Fresh Eyes

We’ve all done it. You have an amazing idea that you put in to practise, that gradually grows in to something special. It’s your baby that you’ve been immersed with it since day one, and don’t want other people to mess it up.

However the problem with being so hands on with a project means your perspective of it can be skewed. What you see might not be what the wider public sees.

In terms of marketing it’s important to get a fresh pair of eyes to give an unbiased appraisal of what to do next.

Outsourcing allows you to see your project from different perspectives, that you may not have considered while developing it.

Accountability

If you pay a professional company to do your internet marketing you are guaranteed a high level of quality. They are accountable if things go wrong and are responsible to make things go right. At the end of the day it’s their job, and they will work with you until you reach your goals.

Doing it yourself or giving the project to a friend is less formal, and you’re less likely to see the same kind of effort, even if you do know what you’re doing. You might cut corners, take time off, or make bad decisions.

4 SEO Myths that are Wasting Your Time in 2021

At this stage in the game the majority of businesses and website owners know that search engine optimization is a fundamental part of building an online presence. However that doesn’t always mean they get it right. Not only are search giants like Google constantly changing their algorithms, but many SEO techniques that have been around since the concept was born, are in fact completely ineffectual. In 2021 here are 4 SEO myths that are wasting your time.

1) Ranking is Irrelevant

The idea that ranking in search engines is now irrelevant and SEO is essentially dead, has mostly been floated with the rise of social media and the fact that so many sites have been negatively impact by Google updates like Panda and Penguin.

The first theory suggests that because social media has become so big, businesses can thrive only on traffic generated from the likes of Facebook and Twitter. This is coupled with the second theory that Google simply no longer rewards search engine optimization and your strategy should be abandoned.

In reality an engaging social media presence is of course very important, but this needs to be partnered with high quality content and an up to date SEO strategy. Those complaining that SEO is dead are mainly those that failed at it, are behind the times or were trying to cut corners, and Google finally caught up with them.

As long as search engines return searches, SEO will remain alive and well.

2) I Just Need to Include My Keywords

Keywords are still the bread and butter of how Google and other search engines operate, but the idea that all you need to do is choose a few keywords and work them in to your website’s content, is grossly misrepresenting the time, effort, and range of technique needed to rank high in 2021.

Did you know that since 2009 Google does not even use the meta description and keyword tags as a ranking factor? You could describe your fitness blog as “a giant chocolate elephant,” and it would have no direct impact on your rankings. It will however turn away real users, which should always been your main focus.

3) SEO is for Bots not Humans

This is perhaps the biggest misnomer of SEO. The idea that all you need to do is optimizeSEO 2015 your website for Google’s web crawlers and the traffic will come flying in. The intent of Google has always been to return the highest quality and most relevant content for human users. In the early days of SEO certain loopholes like spamming keywords or paying for tonnes of irrelevant backlinks essentially allowed you to trick the bots in to thinking your site was the best. However in 2021 Google has a highly evolved algorithm that can easily distinguish between high quality content written with users in mind, and spam written just to fool search engines.

An intelligent web marketer knows that for real success targeting the user and the search engines is a hand in hand relationship.

4) I Can Do it all Myself

While anyone with a cursory knowledge of website development can implement some SEO best practises, chances are they would prefer to spend their time doing something else. An online clothes store wants to sell clothes, not rank web pages. The risk of crafting your own SEO plan is that as time progresses, you just won’t stick to it, you’ll get behind on the latest SEO trends, and other areas of your business will suffer.

An internet marketer and SEO specialist makes it their job to constantly tweak your SEO strategy and stay on top of the latest techniques. Hiring a professional is still the best option in 2021 for your website.