• the best online marketing professionals and experts - WHO WE ARE

Louise Marie

Louise Marie shares a passion for creative writing, and enjoys being detail-oriented in her work. Working as an SEO specialist and copy editor has increased her ability to meet new challenges with an open mind. A degree in Industrial Technology (Major in Computer Technology) also made Louise “tech savvy,” and she prides herself on her ability to recognize the latest trends and technologies in the digital industry. She hopes to someday visit many of the best dessert places across the globe. She’s also a proud “parent” to six beautiful cats.

How to Create an SEO-Friendly FAQ Page

Did you know that you can use frequently asked questions (FAQs) to boost your website’s search engine optimization (SEO)?

That is right! Some questions on your FAQs page can appear on the search engine results pages (SERPs) and drive traffic to your website. 

Although you may have written complete and thorough content on your website, FAQs can efficiently help fill in the gaps and provide quick and straightforward answers to your customers. 

FAQ pages appeal to both search engines and people. Writing a thorough FAQ section on our website can effectively show your visitors that you care about their experience by providing them with a quick and direct response to their questions and their search queries. 

Here are a few tips that will help you get the most out of your FAQ resource and make it both focused and comprehensive:

  1. Do Your Research

Before you start creating FAQs, make sure to identify the most common question that your target customers are asking online. Doing your research can help you write more targeted content for your FAQ section. You can get ideas from the questions that appear in SERPs that are related to your business. You can even make use of the ideas from related searches and existing People Also Ask boxes. 

Also, keyword research can also help you gather a list of words, phrases, and questions that your target audience frequently used to find information in search engines. You can target relevant keywords in your FAQs. Take, for instance, you run a plumbing company. You may come across keywords, such as “drain services,” and questions like “What to do when your drain becomes clogged?” You can use this information as a jump-off point for writing FAQ content. 

You can also find ideas for your FAQ section by looking at the types of searches that your website is showing up for through the Google My Business (GMB) listing. These insights can give you clues about the exact search queries your potential customers use to find your listing. 

Image by mohamed Hassan from Pixabay

  1. Optimize Your Questions & Answers

Putting together and optimizing your FAQ section will require you a few things to ensure that search engines can easily find, understand, and index your content. 

  • Follow Proper Formatting: Use header tags for the questions and regular body text for the answers to help both search engines and website visitors easily find relevant information on the page. 
  • Incorporate Keywords & Phrases: Making use of the keywords and phrases and strategically writing them into the question and answers can increase the likelihood of your content being displayed in Google SERPs. 
  • Answer Questions Clearly and Directly: Make sure to provide a straightforward answer within the first sentence of the paragraph, if possible. The closer the placement of your answer to the question, Google will more likely find and index it for relevant search queries. 

  1. Add FAQ Schema

FAQ schema is perhaps one of the most significant on-page SEO techniques you can use. Schema markup is a digital language that relays Google information about the website and how it should be indexed. 

Adding FAQ schema around your FAQ content enables you to communicate to Google how to categorize and use specific information for question-answer search results. Using this technique can help increase the chances of your content being picked into People Also Ask and Position Zero spots in SERPs. 

  1. Create Page-Specific FAQs

While having a designated page for FAQ on your website is a good idea, adding more FAQ content and structured data on other web pages, such as product pages, services pages, or event location pages, is also a great way to provide your target audience with more answers to specific questions about your company, your business offerings, and how they can get in touch with you. Also, providing Google with more indexable content to pull into SERPs can help further optimize your web pages. 

4 Key Web Design Techniques to Improve Customer Experience

In the ever-growing age of eCommerce, online presence has become a must for many businesses to survive the online competition. As a significant part of your brand’s digital marketing strategy, it is critical that every element of your website serves a purpose, especially when it comes to customer experience. From usability to the visual appearance of your website, every element has a huge impact on how your brand can attract and retain customers. 

Your website design is among the critical elements of modern brand building as it can potentially make or break customer experience and satisfaction. Without responsive, modern and customer-centric design, it is impossible for any website to compete with the top-notch web designs in your industry. Not only poor website design can drive away prospects and existing customers, but search engines will likely penalize your website for a subpar experience. 

To ensure customer experience, keep in mind the following web design techniques:

  • Optimize Your Website Structure

When it comes to positive user experience, visitors are not only laser-focused on the visual elements. Your website should be also simple and straightforward. It turns out that you only have less than 10 seconds to send your brand message to your visitor or they will abandon your website. 

Your website layout does not need complicated designs to impress prospects. You only need a simple web design layout that is easy to navigate and follow, and quick to load. Regardless of the multitude of services and content offered on your website, make sure that your visitors can easily find the information they are looking for. Optimizing the structure of your website often includes clear, brand-specific labels, intuitive categories, and a detailed site map. 

Image by Mudassar Iqbal from Pixabay

  • Weaving the Brand Into Your Web Design

Without an actual in-person interaction with your customers, it can be challenging to instill genuine emotions through digital experience alone. However, one way to do it is by incorporating your brand into the web design all the way to your logo, font, and colour scheme throughout your website.

Both your content and visual identity must reflect the brand values. Using rand-specific design solutions can help you effectively merge your brand identity with your visuals and message, sparking emotional reactions and building an overall brand image that your customers can relate to. 

  • Improve Website Speed 

The majority of online customers consider the website loading speed to be a deal-breaker. If your web page takes more than 10 seconds to load, it makes perfect sense to devote more time and attention improve our website speed. Living in a hectic schedule, customers do not want to waste their time waiting for your site to load properly. Any delays and slow checkout experience will most likely cause your potential customers to abandon your website and search somewhere else where they can quickly find what they are looking for. 

While website loading speed is critical for decision-making, not all brands are taking them into account when designing their web presence. For instance, the size of your files can affect the speed of your website. Since large-sized files often take longer to load, be sure to optimize your files by reducing the page size as much as possible. 

  • Ensure Website Responsiveness

Responsiveness is another crucial factor that affects the success of your website. When your website design does not properly fit in various screen resolutions on different devices, then it can impact the user experience in a negative way. Today, millions of your target audience use mobile devices. With mobile traffic increasing significantly over the years, failure to optimize your website for responsiveness can potentially mean missing a myriad of opportunities in your business. 

Once you have a better insight and understanding of the importance of good web design on customer experience, it will be easier for you to make the necessary improvements. 

Black Hat SEO Techniques You Must Avoid This 2022

For marketers looking for a shortcut to boost their search engine rankings and increase online visibility, black hat SEO may seem to be the solution. However, if you are planning to use black hat SEO techniques, think twice as it can hurt your SEO campaign more than it can help.

What Is Black Hat SEO and Why You Should Avoid Them

Black Hat SEO is a set of illegal practices used to increase the search engine rankings and visibility of a website. The techniques used work against the search engine guidelines and disregard the user’s intent by attempting to bypass best practices.

While search engines consider the use of black hat SEO unscrupulous, there are still marketers who are still trying to cheat to speed up the organic success of their websites. Although black hat techniques may yield results, they do not last long and often involved damaging effects on your SEO, including:

  • Google Penalty

Violating Google’s Webmaster Guidelines can get your website or pages penalized. Penalties can downgrade your search engine rankings or worse, a permanent ban on your website. When your target audience does not see your website on the SERPs, your business will fail as a result.

  • Poor User Experience

If your web pages look spammy, your visitors will likely abandon your website, resulting in a high bounce rate.

  • Malicious Cyber Attacks

While black hat SEO helps improve your search rankings, it can also make your website vulnerable to cyber attacks. Hackers can easily penetrate your databases and spread malware by inserting extra content on random web pages.

Black SEO Practices to AVOID

  • Keyword Stuffing

One of the most common misconceptions in SEO is that inserting too many keywords in your content can make your page relevant to a specific search. However, this black hat SEO technique often results in a poor user experience as it can make the content difficult to read. To avoid the penalties, use your keywords sparingly, but make sure to them relevant.

  • Low-Quality Content

Content is essential for your search engine rankings. While high-quality content is costly and difficult to create, there are still marketers who post low-quality and cheap content to boost SEO. Google loves unique and high-quality content that provides answers and solutions to the user’s queries.

  • Cloaking

Black hat marketers use the cloaking technique to trick search engines into ranking content for a specific keyword, which is not relevant to the web page content. This technique misleads users by showing a piece of content on the website while displaying completely different content on the search engine. This tricks the users into opening your website.

  • Backlink Buying

Building backlinks from high authority sites not only help increase the search engine rankings but also the domain authority and online credibility of your website.

But instead of building high authority inbound links, black hat marketers purchase links to generate as many links to their websites. Buying links that are not relevant to your website can promote spammy content. As a result, backlink buying will hurt your credibility and backlink quality. Instead, earn quality backlinks organically from reputable sources.

  • Spamming

Some black hat SEO marketers use shady practices, such as spamming comments on their competitor’s website with a link back to their website. They leave plenty of comments to attract readers into clicking the links.

  • False Redirects

The act of falsely misleading or redirecting search engines, traffic, and users is another form of black hat SEO technique. It involves setting up a redirect link to lead search engines and users to various pages on their website. Black hat marketers can also redirect a high-quality web page to a low-quality page to boost the search ranking of the latter.

Tips to Make Online Reviews Work for Your Business

Many people rely on online reviews for everything from choosing a pizza parlour to hiring a plumber to install and repair the pipes in your home. In today’s digital marketing world, it is impossible to understate the impact of online reviews on your business. Recent surveys reported that 86% of virtual shoppers read online reviews before making a purchase.

When it comes to online reviews, the key phrase is “social proof.” This shows that people liked the product or service you are offering or competing with. By providing prospects with a number of social proof, customer reviews can help increase conversion and build the credibility of your company.

While customer reviews can help boost your sales, the way you utilize them can leverage your conversion-boosting potential. Here are some helpful tips on how you can empower your business using online reviews.

  • Claim Your Google My Business (GMB) Listing

While you can find customer reviews everywhere online, Google is the most popular review site. About 64% of consumers check the reviews posted on Google before visiting a business. Creating a GMB page enables you to keep track of and respond to your reviews. These reviews will be displayed in Google and Google Maps search results, which helps establish the credibility and quality of your business.

  • Encourage Customers to Leave a Review

Getting reviews from your customers helps attract new prospects. That is why you will need to create a strategy that will continuously encourage customers to leave reviews. However, recency matters to most potential customers are looking for in a review.

According to surveys, nearly 34% search for reviews that are posted between a week to a month. Consistency in getting reviews can be a powerful tool to earn the trust and confidence of your target customers.

Sending a link to your review page on GMB, Yelp, or website can make it easy for prospects to leave a review for your business. It also helps you to respond to their reviews. Customers tend to leave a review, especially if they feel appreciated.

The customer will receive a notification when you respond to their review. According to BrightLocal’s data, 20% of customers expect business owners to respond to their reviews within one day.

  • Resist Deleting Negative Reviews

The last thing you want from your customers is negative reviews. However, deleting reviews on Google is never a good idea. You might be surprised to learn that 46% of consumers do not trust businesses with a perfect five-star rating. Customers often get suspicious of businesses with too-good-to-be-true reviews. Even your most loyal customers will still want to know your potential drawbacks. Additionally, receiving a negative review helps you see how you can improve your products or services.

  • Respond Well to Negative Reviews

Many business owners may feel tempted to censor negative reviews. This dishonesty can have an unpleasant impact on your business. Never let unpleasant reviews sit there. Use it as an opportunity to respond to your customers in a polite, helpful, and constructive way. Replying to customers helps improve their satisfaction and loyalty, and even encourages them to recommend your business to other potential customers.

  • Proactively Feature and Broadcast Reviews

You can strategically display customer reviews on your website or add a headshot if possible, especially if it is written by an industry expert, a celebrity, or an influencer, so people can easily spot them.

Another way to highlight top reviews is by converting them into social ads as it draws more attention, especially on Facebook. Make sure to add the average rating badges on the footer of your website and cite reviews in your nurture emails.

Allow your website visitors to search reviews using keywords or star ratings to filter reviews. Various surveys reported that potential customers who use the search feature on a product or service page are more likely to convert at 202.9%, including people searching for 1-star reviews.

2022’s 10 SEO Trends to Follow

High-quality customer engagement and excellent search ranking have always been the basic tenets of search engine optimization in digital marketing. However, every year, market trends and search engine algorithms are constantly updated. As these innovations continue to change the landscape of global marketing, as a company, you also have to adapt and keep up with them.

This will sometimes require a modification or complete revamp of your current marketing and content development techniques. If you are a beginner, keeping up with a new search engine optimization strategy may take some time to get used to.

Fortunately, you can always educate your marketing team with a thorough search engine optimization course. For added insight, you can look up the upcoming SEO trends for this year and stay a step ahead of your competitors.

Here are the latest SEO trends list:

1. New Search Engines

Photo Credit: Tumisu | Pixabay

Google has always been a key player in web exploration. However, as new companies see the profit in search engines, they too have developed their algorithms and software. In the upcoming years, search engines from Apple, Bing, Yahoo, and more are predicted to dominate the market and cause a change in hierarchy.

This sudden shift in audiences could be an advantage for your company since currently, billions of data are exclusively published on Google, which makes it more difficult to make your content stand out.

As audiences spread out to different search engine platforms, the data concentration in this available database will be more diluted and manageable. So, for now, it’s best to sign up and upload your content to up-and-coming search engines, where there’s more room to catch attention.

2. Democratized Searching

By 2022, the authority signal of a website will no longer matter as much. As Google aims to create a more democratized search space, it will allow netizens to explore more information by making it easier to find overlooked information.

Though domain authority and backlink building will still play a major role in determining a website’s search ranking, the likelihood of reaching that top spot will still be higher. This algorithm change will make it easier for new websites to gain traffic and get noticed, as long as they are regularly dishing out high-quality content.

3. Prioritizing the Basics

Although major shifts in tools and algorithms are always on the horizon, the basics of SEO and digital marketing will stay the same. As a company that’s looking to upgrade its digital marketing campaigns, it’s best to keep your basic view of SEO the same.

Success in 2022’s online industry will still heavily rely on backlink building, premier content quality, efficient on-page SEOs, and well-designed website technicalities.

So, if you’re planning to hire a search optimization expert for your upcoming content development and campaign ads, it’s best to remind them to stick to these basic principles, while incorporating innovations.

4. Long-Form Content

Content described as short and simple is often equated to high-quality information. This has been the norm for the past years as Google tries to weed out weak websites and look for premier information. However, in the upcoming year, as netizens tend to be more investigative, they now prefer a more thorough discussion.

This means the rise of long-form content in 2022. However, the length of the article will not be the main deciding factor for higher search ranking as credible authorship and sources will also be vital. If you’re unsure about how to create this type of article, you can always ask for help from the SEO experts.

5. Structured Data and Quality Snippets

Netizens are always looking for the most precise and trustworthy data for their queries that are delivered to them in a summarized and comprehensive fashion. With that said, Google has tried to accommodate this preference by picking out rich snippets that provide the most information in the shortest format.

These short informative snippets then get placed on top of the SERPs and have more chances of getting clicked and visited. So, next time, when you’re planning out your next content, try to create a summary section that is worthy of getting featured.

6. Software for Content Optimization

You don’t have to conduct your SEO upgrades on your own. A variety of applications have been developed to help you through the process by being capable to identify necessary keywords, synonyms, subtopics, and more.

This will make your content more noticeable to search engine algorithms. SEO companies can help you better in using these tools efficiently to create the best content for your next ad campaign.

7. AI Content

Machine learning that powers AI technology is constantly innovating every year. Equipped with the best knowledge and understanding of the online world, these virtual assistants are capable of creating better-optimized content. They can even write entire articles if provided with enough data.

Although this trend may heavily reduce your need for manpower, it’s still at its early stages, so it’s best to keep your human staff. For now, these AI-powered tools can help you in title generation, meta tag creation, and topic outline.

8. Keyword Clustering

Keyword clustering, an updated version of traditional keyword research, allows you to stand out and achieve a higher search ranking by using closely-related keywords in your content.

Google uses this new kind of content assessment by valuing websites that have the most keyword total while maintaining a comprehensive flow of thought. For a better idea, try contacting SEO experts for help.

9. Recommended Information

Photo Credit: Mikael Blomkvist | Pexels

Recommended queries and FAQs are usually found at the top of SERPs. To get on that spot, you have to create a variety of content related to one another that uses long-tail question keywords. The information that you provide should also be as concise as possible.

10. Core Web Experience

Webpage experience is the main deciding factor that Google algorithms use to assess the quality and authority of a website. As they always prioritize the experience of netizens, the ease of how your visitors navigate through your website is highly valued.

With that said, to be on par with their standards, you have to prioritize faster page loading and improve on first input delay and cumulative layout shifts.

Updating your content development techniques and SEO strategies requires plenty of research, money, time, and effort. However, no matter how tedious it may seem, it’s a good investment that will lead to increased customer traffic and wider market influence.

So, don’t shy away from these trends and try them all. Always remember, that in digital marketing, adapting to updates and innovations is the key to success.

digital trends 2022

7 Digital Marketing Strategies to Grow Your Startup Business in 2022

Many startups encounter various challenges, including building their brand name and attracting potential customers, especially in the early stage. In addition to the lack of brand awareness, most startup business owners have limited resources to promote their business.

Launching a startup is a complicated feat and complex process to take on, especially during a pandemic. While it may seem extremely challenging to pursue entrepreneurship in such uncertain times, with the right digital marketing strategies, the process of growing your business can also be an exciting journey.

Effective Digital Marketing Strategies for Startups

Today, many companies are using different digital channels to reach existing and potential customers. Also, the number of customers making purchases or hiring services online has drastically increased.

Digital marketing is key to running a successful business online. With the right strategies, digital marketing can do wonders for startup businesses. Even with insufficient resources, startups can leverage digital marketing to generate, nurture, and convert leads into sales.

1. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Having a website for your business is only half the battle—you need your target customers to find your website organically on search engines. Optimizing your website for search engines requires the use of target keywords relevant to your business. SEO ranks your website for specific keywords, making you an authority in your niche.

2. Social Media

Social media platforms are valuable channels to market your business, interact with your customers, and share insights on a more personal level. For startup businesses, social media marketing is a cost-effective yet powerful strategy for introducing your products or services and showcasing what your business is all about and how your customers can benefit from your offerings.

However, you need to choose the ideal social media platform to target your audience. Consider the following tips:

  • LinkedIn is a popular social media network for B2B companies
  • Facebook comes with various features for business profile
  • Instagram is a more popular option if you are targeting younger demographics

3. Blog Content

Creating unique, relevant, and engaging content can help develop your brand authority. Publishing blogs and other content assets regularly are the best way to build a blog resources library that your target audience can refer to anytime they are looking for information. Well-written blogs can entice people to get to know your brand and products better and encourage them to explore your web pages.

4. Videos

Videos are a highly popular form of content that you cannot ignore. Millions of Internet users spend hours watching videos on YouTube. While written articles help educate customers, videos are more engaging and shareable, attracting more videos and shares. Creating how-to and discussion videos helps build your online presence on YouTube and attract more audiences to your startup business.

5. Mobile Experience

Millions of people use their smartphones and tablets to search, shop, and socialize online. However, do not just settle on making your website on mobile devices—be sure your website is designed to deliver an exceptional user experience even on the tiniest screens. Redesigning your website should include streamlining content and improving download speed to keep your visitors engaged.

6. Google My Business

Digital marketing strategies should help customers find your business easily on the Internet. Fortunately, Google provides a free tool to optimize your business profile on Google Search and Maps. Google My Business is not only a vital platform for sharing your essential business information but also enables you to interact with your customers by requesting them to leave reviews. Email Marketing Sending personalized and targeted emails is another effective way to engage and influence your subscribers. When building an email list, use sign-in forms and lead magnets to persuade website visitors to share their email ids and contact information. Do not simply create relevant and engaging email content for your recipients—be sure to convey your brand message. Your email must also include powerful call-to-actions (CTAs) to make recipients take the desired action.

What Are the Best Ways to Repurpose Your Content?

There is an exciting way to make your existing content new and great again. We are sure that you have an archive loaded with once helpful, popular content, and it is a shame to keep them hidden in the dark!

Repurposing is a content marketing technique that allows you to breathe in new life to old posts and continue to gain value. Repurposing is about recycling old posts and promoting them in a new form to widen their reach and lifespan.

You do not need to create new content every day. Drawing existing blog posts, videos, and other assets can cut down the time to produce new content. Additionally, it improves your bottom line and the visibility of your content, which can help you reach a wider audience.

How to Repurpose Your Old

Content If you want to repurpose your outdated content for various channels, start by assessing your metrics. Identify high-performing content and think of ways how you can continue to provide value to your target audience with the same content in various formats.

  • Create a YouTube Video

Your existing how-to blog posts can be transformed into tutorial YouTube videos, especially if they are graphics-heavy pieces. For example, you are a business coach offering tutorial services to salespeople who want to master sales calls. You can use some of your blog posts to create a script and convert it into a YouTube video.

  • Create an Infographic

If you have an old blog post packed with statistics or data, the best way to repurpose it is by creating an infographic. Most consumers love visuals, so creating an infographic post of statistics is an effective way to engage your target audience and give new value to your content. While you can include infographics in your blog, you can also post them on social media.

  • Create a Podcast

You can cite quotes from industry leaders or thought leadership posts and create podcasts. Convert the blog into a script and invite industry leaders back for a more comprehensive analysis of the insight they have given for the post.

  • Create an eBook

You can turn long-form content into an ebook to provide educational value to your reader. Discuss specific essential elements of your subject in your blog and offer the ebook to your target audience for a more in-depth analysis.

  • Create a Slideshow

Creating a slideshow is perhaps the easiest way to recycle your old content since it only involves converting the blog into a presentation form. Choose high-performing content and repurpose it into a SlideShare. It allows you to easily share it and introduce your repurposed content in a new format. You can also add graphic elements to make your slideshow more engaging.

  • Social Media Post

You can turn your blog posts into microblogs on various social media platforms, such as Facebook, Tumblr, and Instagram. However, avoid promoting your blog posts directly. Instead, repurpose your brand message. Be sure to create a summary of the crucial points of your original blog. It allows you to maximize your ideas and share them on your social media.

  • Turn Old Webinars Into Video Tutorials

If you have hosted great webinars that attracted many attendees, do let them go to waste! You can reuse them again and transform them into video tutorials. Not only does your content live forever, but it can also be an additional asset to your website and attract more target audiences to your website via YouTube!

  • Turn Video Transcripts Into Blog Posts

Did you know that you can convert video transcripts into blog posts?

A scripted video with a logical structure does not require heavy editing to turn it into an engaging blog post. Take, for instance, the Whiteboard Friday, a weekly video produced by Moz. Although each of their videos has unique content, they also employ a transcription tool that helps convert videos into blog posts.

seo

Word Count for SEO: Does It Really Matter?

Every year, Google creates new algorithm updates that keep content marketers on their toes, trying to figure out the secret formula that would send their content to the top of the search engine results page (SERP). Also, some marketers think that writing longer content can help them improve their ranking positions.

Word count has always been considered a contributing metric used by many content marketers to determine the quality of text-based content. In addition to keyword density, word count is also presumed to be a vital search engine optimization (SEO) factor. After all, Google is a machine, so how else would it evaluate the quality of the content? For content marketers, word count is a significant signal that Google can understand.

Is Word Count a Crucial Factor in SEO Content?

Over the years, content marketers debate whether word count matters for SEO. Some believe that longer content is better while others agree that the quality is always superior to the number of words.

John Mueller, Google’s Senior Webmaster Trends Analyst, has confirmed that word count is not a ranking signal in the search algorithm. He specifically stated that just blindly adding text does not help improve the ranking of your content. Google is more about creating fresh, relevant, and high-quality content. While word count is not essentially a ranking factor, it matters for SEO, especially when combined with quality.

In most cases, the longer and more in-depth the content is, the easier it is for search engines to determine the context of the article. Additionally, the length helps search engine bots crawl and construe what the information is all about and rank the content in the relevant SERPs.

Google and other search engines love lengthier and more in-depth articles. However, it does not necessarily mean writing long-form posts for the sake of it. Google is smart enough to tell if your content is a blunder, and so can your readers.

Creating relevant and unique content that directly reflects your post title is the best approach to satisfy your readers. Otherwise, your target audience will get bored and immediately abandon your page, resulting in an unpleasant impact on your reader engagement or SEO.

Also, lengthy content provides ample room for optimization. For instance, it allows content marketers more opportunities to insert relevant keywords, including long-tail variations, without the risk of keyword stuffing. It also enables marketers to boost SEO by working on other essential content elements, such as headings, links, and images.

Most importantly, writing longer posts allows you to delve into the topic in greater depth, tackle the problem and offer solutions than is possible with shorter content. While you can provide answers to some questions with thin content, a longer and more detailed post has more value to your readers.

How Does Word Count Impact Your SEO?

While there is no given specific, optimal number of words that ensures high search results, it does not necessarily mean that it has no impact on your rankings. Mueller may have stated that word count is not a ranking factor, but he did not confirm that it does not affect other ranking factors. For instance, meta-descriptions may not be a ranking factor, but they can influence the click-through rate and prompt prospective clients to visit your website.

A higher word count not only helps you answer your target audience’s search intent but also boosts your opportunity for other websites to link back to yours, which are both ranking factors.

On the other hand, if your content is overly written and goes off-topic, it loses the relevancy of the user’s search. Just because writing a long-form post ensures you have more word count, keep in mind that it does not equate to quality content. Make sure to always focus on your goal—and that is to provide your readers with relevant, engaging, and informative content.

Top Digital Marketing Techniques to Learn in 2022

Every year ushers in technological innovations and new techniques in the digital market. As a company, staying on top of these changes and trends is crucial as it will determine your ability to stay relevant and engaging. With the increasingly competitive industry, quality customer interaction remains your key strategy to stand out.

You can only do so by maximizing traffic, search ranking, and conversion rate through accessible and responsive company communication lines. As search engines impose new regulations, and social media platforms create new options, being updated is vital for your next campaign ads.

So, how can you improve your digital marketing in business? Which trends should you invest in and how can you stay 2 steps ahead of your competitors. Find out the top digital marketing trends this year.

10 Top Digital Marketing Trends

Here is a quick run-through of the top digital marketing trends this 2022:

1. Metaverse

Making a big splash in 2021, Mark Zuckerberg launched this social media platform as a new way for netizens to interact and connect. Mainly using 3D holographic avatars, virtual reality, augmented reality, and video, it provides a unique online experience, where people can socialize, work, and play together from the comforts of their own homes.

And as this medium has been projected to grow for the upcoming decade, it’s best to invest in it now, when ad space is still affordable. This will give you the first-mover advantage, and allow you to offer a new kind of medium for your customers to engage with your company.

2. Accessibility

Inclusivity is key in today’s market. No customer wants to feel neglected and left out. So, even though you’re targeting a specific consumer demographic, you also have to develop products that cater to other people’s needs.

It could be for differently-abled people, pregnant women, kids, and more. For your company to maximize its market reach, you need to innovate and provide product variety.

Doing so will also reflect well on your company’s reputation as it will show your customers that you genuinely care about them. To gain traction for these new products, you can consult with SEO companies for special content development.

3. Gender Sensitivity

With the positive trend towards LGBTQ+ inclusivity growing, as a company, holding on to traditional gender norms should be scrapped. Sticking to it will only project an image of backward thinking and exclusivity that your target customers may not resonate with.

Creating gender-neutral ads and campaigns will prevent alienation, and show the public that you embrace diversity. Using the correct pronouns is also advised to avoid offending your potential customers.

4. Sustainability

With consumers getting more informed about global environmental issues, a demand for better corporate practices has been growing these past years and rightfully so. Conscientious customers are more discerning when it comes to choosing the brands that reflect their eco-conscious values.

However, it is not enough to simply use these values on the surface level for clout, as customers can see through it and view it as disingenuous. So, make sure to commit to concrete decisions that benefit both the planet and your company.

5. Comprehensive Content

Image Credit: Pixabay | Pexels

Content translates best when it’s simple and comprehensive. Using overcomplicated jargon, analogies, and high-end vocabulary will only alienate your audience. With search engines filled with millions of data, being straightforward and clear will make you stand out amidst the digital noise.

Flowery prose will only take away from the point that you want to get across. So, next time, when you’re creating content for complicated topics, make sure to break it down and be comprehensive.

It would also be better if you visualize it through infographics, videos, and graphs. If you’re new to this, you can always contact SEO to help you out.

6. Social Commerce

Never underestimate the power of social media. As the main digital spaces for today’s netizens, these social media platforms will serve as the main channels for discourse and engagement.

For your company to flourish in the digital market, having a business page on major social media channels of Facebook, YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, and Twitter are crucial. Registering your company in online shopping apps can also foster greater customer traffic.

It will serve as your company’s establishment proxy in the digital world. Paid ads, sponsorship, live streams, and more are also useful digital PR tools to promote your content and expand your market reach.

7. Buffering Your Supply Chain

Stock capacity, especially during the holidays is a problem for any company. However, if you’re a service-based company, then enough manpower should be prioritized. For the latter, aligning your available stocks with the current demand is a crucial planning pre-requisite, as any delay in delivery can lead to unsatisfied customers, which could lead to damaging the brand’s reputation.

So, to guarantee that you can always provide for replacements, returns, and broken merchandise, have a 30-day stock buffer. This way, when you experience shipment delays, you can still have a longer time window to plan out alternatives.

8. Prioritize Consumer Privacy

As Google has phased out third-party cookies to protect customer privacy, as a company, you have to think of other ways to profile your targeted audience without violating their rights. This means improved methods of data collection that value consent and anonymity. Now, this may sound like a tedious process, but CRM tools like emails, newsletters, and social media surveys can still provide quality engagement.

9. Cryptocurrency

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Cryptocurrency has rapidly gained value over the years. As customers are looking for easier ways to transact and pay for their items, this economic medium is something to look out for although its compatibility relies heavily on your company’s target audience. So, before you consider using it, try to do some market analysis first.

10. NFTs

As the mediums for interaction continue to evolve in today’s digital world, making a profit out of your content can be quite challenging. As they cannot be directly converted into cash, the value of these digital assets may seem low. However, with the rise of NFTs or non-fungible tokens, you can now utilize your online content as actual market products.

Digital marketing trends in 2022 are all about the emergence of virtual currencies, communities, and space for netizens. The rise of augmented reality has been fuelled by the recent limited physical interactions that the pandemic has caused in the past years.

With that said, these trends can be quite complex, so proper digital market training is necessary for you to use them efficiently in your campaigns.

The Basics of Digital Marketing

Exploring the technical aspects of digital marketing may seem like a daunting task for budding entrepreneurs. However, learning the ABCs of online content development, SEO techniques, and campaign ads might be easier than you think.

User-friendly and instinctive, these digital tools, when used correctly could significantly increase your market reach, industry influence, and customer engagement. It’s important to remember that even though the medium of marketing has moved online, the basic principles of advertising and consumer interaction stay the same.

With every upgrade you make, high-quality customer service still reigns supreme. Whether it’s big or small business internet marketing, prioritizing consumer needs is vital. And, in today’s competitive market, the only way you can do that is by adapting to digital changes that offer faster transactions and easier communication with your clients.

Digital Marketing and Importance

Compared to traditional advertising, digital marketing allows you to reach a wider audience, compete with bigger businesses, generate more leads, and increase ROI. It helps you achieve all these with the help of search engine algorithms that exposes your brand and web pages to more traffic.

To do that, you also have to prove that your content is credible and deserves a high search ranking. You can do so with SEO upgrades and digital marketing tools. If you’re unfamiliar with how to go about this, you can always ask for expert help from digital advertising agencies.

10 Basic Tools of Digital Marketing

The best thing about digital advertising is the ease that it provides to users, whether amateurs or experts. With all the available tools provided by search engine algorithms, you can easily manage your digital campaigns.

Here is a quick run-through of the useful online marketing tools that you can use:

1. SEO

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Considered the foundation of digital marketing, search engine optimization or SEO is an inexpensive and fundamental method that allows you to make your website and content meet the standards of search engine algorithms.

As Google wants to provide high-quality results for every online query, they tend to sift through the thousands of data published daily and rank these websites based on relevance, authority, and credibility.

They do that by assessing the overall performance of your website, from the use of keywords, backlink building, on-page elements, and more. For your company’s website to gain traction in its first few days of upload, you have to ensure that it’s equipped with every possible upgrade that will fit with the required website qualities that algorithms demand.

Making a mistake could significantly decrease your search ranking and authority. So, if you’re unsure about how to go about it, you can always hire experts from SEO companies.

2. Online Advertising

Also coined as paid media, this aspect of digital advertising is the process of collaborating with search engine algorithms to boost your online presence. Usually, only the websites that are in the coveted first SERP are the ones most visited by netizens.

By using these paid ads on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and Google, you’ll get to achieve more exposure for a limited time.

Online advertising also allows you to track the performance of your campaigns through analytics. You can maximize your online advertising performance by asking for help from experts.

3. Content Marketing

Creating premier content for your websites and campaigns is a must in digital advertising. Doing so will increase customer engagement and online traffic organically. The more comprehensive and relatable your content is, the higher its reach will be.

This content development is not limited to articles only as you can explore other mediums, such as videos, infographics, audiobooks, and more. As long as it resonates with your target audience, you’re on the right track. For a more efficient way how to perform this, you may consult with internet marketing services near you.

4. Email Marketing

Comparable to traditional marketing cold calls, this outreach allows you to connect with your target customers in a more personalized manner. It’s also a more efficient method of marketing as you can reuse email templates over and over again and send them to multiple accounts.

This method also makes it easier for you to generate leads and update your potential customers regarding company events, discounts, sales, and more.

5. Social Media Marketing

Social media platforms are the perfect channels for customer-company engagement. They serve as virtual communities where certain customer demographics can gather and share their opinions regarding a product. You can take advantage of this organic exchange by creating a solid and approachable online presence.

6. PPC Ads

Also, a part of paid media, this form of digital advertising allows you to increase content exposure with more affordable pricing. As long as you keep paying, your ads will reach a wider market. However, this is a short-term solution and is best used seasonally.

7. Mobile Marketing

Mobile phones are now an integral and inseparable component of daily life. Portable and small, these devices allow individuals to better interact with the digital world. Statistics also show that majority of online searches are done on mobile. So, it’s best to make your website design mobile-friendly making it accessible to all your potential customers.

8. Influencer Marketing

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Influencers are today’s relatable version of Hollywood stars. Easier to connect with and reach out to, these individuals tend to be more grounded with their fans. With that said, you can utilize their close relationship with the customer demographic to your advantage by sponsoring them.

This technique is commonly used in digital marketing for dentists as they offer free trial services to influencers and advertise the results to their fans.

9. Video Marketing

Customer content engagement is crucial in digital advertising. However, traditional forms of online content such as articles and infographics may bore your audience. To make your content more memorable use a multimedia format that stimulates more senses. Video content also tends to go viral and gain more exposure.

10. Audio Marketing

Radio is not the only channel for audio marketing. With the rise of podcasts and eBooks, you can now reach an untapped door in the market, where hundreds of customers are waiting. Audio ads on Spotify, Google, and Alexa can dramatically increase your market reach. So, make your campaigns more versatile by developing content variety.

More than half of the world’s population can be found active online. From simple chatting, daily posts, and ordering merchandise, any customer can do anything in the comforts of their own home as long as they’re connected to the web.

This unprecedented level of social connectivity and bonding only reinforces the business opportunities that digital marketing provides.