Congratulations you made it through a prosperous 2016, how are you going to continue to prosper in 2017? There are 3 key areas our Digital Marketing Agency would like to address to help your business increase inbound conversions and make good decisions based on data analysis. First, think about integrating your paid search conversion tracking; second, time to look at your search engine optimization (SEO) approach; and third start capturing the data and use it. If you do the following below, you can optimize your search marketing spend and increase your digital advertising return on investment (ROI) in 2017.
Search Engine Marketing
As search marketing experts, we know Google likes it when the platforms speak to each other to record events and conversions. In 2017, it’s imperative your Google Analytics and your Google Ads accounts speak to each other. If Google is about relevancy, what better way to show your relevancy by recording inbound conversion events through contact forms and phone calls? With that said, this can be a daunting task and it may be wise to enlist a digital marketing agency who knows what they are doing.
Google’s Search Algorithm Updates
According to Search Engine Journal, Google’s search algorithm appears to have changed November 10th, 2016. According to Moz, this unnamed major update followed upon the Phase 2 Penguin 4.0 update that occurred October 6, 2016. I bring this up because a few things about organic search are changing and this may impact your bottom line. Some old tricks like keyword stuffing and sketchy backlinks are no longer going to be effective. Thus, now is the time to start strategizing how to navigate and take advantage of the new algorithm. Some important pieces of the new update include:
- Content Factors
- User Signals
- Technical Factors
- User Experience Factors
- Social Signals
- Backlink Signals (Quality of backlink is a factor)
Yes, times are changing and it’s important to work with a digital marketing agency you can trust. As we’ve learned in 2016 Black Hat SEO is very much alive and can cost your business.
Marketing Intelligence in 2017
Finally, what about data and marketing intelligence? Many of the businesses we work with didn’t have a plan to capture their campaign data and actually use it to make smart advertising decisions. How does this data stuff work anyway? Well, here is a brief story about a service client we work with and how we used data to increase his ROI: his budget was tight for the industry, they were cycling through media companies and couldn’t show a positive ROI for his paid search marketing anywhere. We immediately developed a strategy for them keeping the same target budget but sought to maximize it. Our team analyzed the campaign data and we found the most profitable keywords and geographic areas. Now, we simply target those areas and our client is making upwards of 150% return on investment and growing as the campaign optimizes.
In 2017, every business needs to optimize their digital marketing spend and believe it or not, there is a lot of waste out there. Again, our recommendations for 2017 include: integrating your conversion systems, review your SEO program, and start capturing and analyzing your campaign data. If you follow this advice, you’re sure to better off in 2017.
