The digital marketing ecosystem has experienced dramatic changes, particularly in the last few years. For example, Web 3’s metaverse provided brand marketers to think in new dimensions during the pandemic. More recently, ChatGPT made artificial intelligence approachable and exponentially more impactful on virtually every aspect of marketing. In this article, we explore digital marketing strategies and tactics that haven’t worn well in the past decade, to ensure your 2024 marketing plan is both timeless and forward-looking.

Building a digital marketing department
Marketing should be agnostic to media type, and so should the strategist be developing and implementing marketing campaigns. As such, companies need to conduct a skills assessment of existing marketing teams to determine who may need training or who may need to be replaced with talent that natively understands both digital and analog worlds. This obsolete strategy is still an issue for most marketing teams that have not focused on integration and will continue to haunt slow adopters.

Designing a website via internal stakeholder committee
The primary reason for the lack of user-centered design is that most websites are built by a host of departmental managers who have far too much say on colors, fonts, images, and copy. The problem with committee-based design is that these representatives make decisions based on their personal tastes and preferences versus those of the site’s intended user. While this approach is increasingly uncommon, it is still a very real issue due to the group thinking inherent in corporations.

Creating content for content’s sake
With rampant adoption of ChatGPT and similar generative AI platforms, content is easier to create than ever before. This trend has exacerbated the desire to focus on quantity of content over quality, which is only hurting brands in the long term. Successful brands will spend the time to research, develop, optimize, and syndicate content that matters to their constituents and works well across device types and screen sizes. At the very least, invest in high quality editors if you plan to cut copywriting staff due to increased ChatGPT reliance.

Doing black-hat SEO
Google has developed a detailed set of guidelines for search-friendly website design. If you follow their rules, you will be much more likely to rank for desired search terms. Even Bing operates on very similar terms: no IP-spoofing, redirects, hidden or duplicate text, etc. To boil it down, do good marketing and Google will reward you with higher rankings. Google’s E-E-A-T updates identified and penalized a significant number of websites for violating best practices, yet companies still feel the pull of the quick wins that black- and grey-hat SEO can supposedly provide. Big mistake. Play for the long game with compelling content, clean code, and the kind of site credibility and authority that can only be earned, not bought.

Avoiding landing page testing
Unfortunately, not much has changed over the past decade, in terms of landing page testing and optimization adoption across the marketing landscape. The companies that “get it” continue to invest and evolve their efforts, resulting in ever-increasing conversion rates. Far too many marketers, however, are too busy, skeptical, or unlearned regarding the benefits of landing page optimization (LPO). I believe a significant percentage of these remaining marketers will finally commit to testing, if not diving full-bore into LPO in 2024, especially with help from ChatGPT and similar AI-powered tools.

Focusing on engagement in social media
In the first wave of social media marketing (1995-2009), marketers focused on gaining followers and fans. The second wave of social media (2010-2014) focused on conversations and engagement efforts. The third wave (2015 and beyond) focused on three primary areas: collaboration, conversions and brand narrative. Smaller companies, business-to-business organizations, and profit-driven corporations should now focus more on conversion-based strategies and tactics that drive revenue. Bigger consumer brands will shift focus towards developing a brand narrative that helps consumers identify with the company and fit it into the picture a person has of themselves (i.e., shared values like environmental or social issues). Brands will focus from being “Liked” to being “Attached” to the consumer.

Paying third-party vendors to represent your brand in social media
The most common excuses for outsourcing social media management include a lack of internal resources and a lack of proficiency with social platforms. The bottom line is that nobody knows your brand better than your employees, partners, and other advocates. Let them oversee spreading the good word, not a low-paid college graduate working from home. I wish this were less common than it is, but many brands still feel the need to outsource their voice in social media, rather than building the resources in-house (with guidance from experts like us, of course).

Underestimating the power of video (and audio) marketing
I speak regularly about social media and search marketing and am a huge champion of multimedia content, especially video for marketing. I’m still amazed that the marketers to whom I present so often lack cohesive video (and audio) organic and paid content strategies. YouTube is still the world’s second largest search engine, so what are you doing to get into that conversation with consistently compelling content? Brands of all sizes and shapes also need a coherent TikTok and vertical video marketing strategy to be relevant in 2024.

Renting email lists
With the understanding that building an email database in-house is still a highly effective sales and marketing strategy, companies continue to test new strategies to grow their list. Some of the more effective methods of building a house email list include SEO, PPC, direct (mail) marketing, co-registration (email) with partners, contests (via social media platforms like X/Twitter and Facebook) and most importantly, search marketing. This has not changed, and thankfully, fewer organizations are renting low-quality email lists that typically generate a high percentage of spam complaints.

Sending unsegmented or untargeted emails
Despite the evolution of email marketing platforms, a significant percentage of businesses (particularly smaller ones with limited budget and bandwidth) continue to send out unsegmented or targeted emails. Spending the time to understand your email list by digging deep into the analytics and contact profiles, even with help from AI, can reap huge rewards. From there, create and target content based on indicated preferences, as well as demographic and psychographic information. Leveraging the power of AI now available in many email/CRM/marketing automation platforms, watch the value of each subscriber increase exponentially, with incremental effort.

Gaming online reviews
Most brands understand the power of social proof in the form of customer reviews. Unfortunately, too many brands are quick to “buy” or influence positive reviews. The result is the risk of being penalized by search engines, directories, and other review sites. The greater danger is consumers seeing through the charade and taking their business elsewhere. The short answer: create compelling and memorable customer experiences that will make them want to create and share positive reviews. Many companies are focusing on customer delight in 2015 and will bubble to the top as a result.

For a business to succeed in this increasingly complicated and noisy digital world, marketers must let go of obsolete ideas and embrace the concept of continually testing evolving techniques and technologies. The outdated digital marketing techniques outlined above are best retired in 2023, to free up bandwidth and budget for greater success in the years to come.

The post Retire These Outdated Digital Marketing Strategies Today appeared first on SEMpdx.

Introduction
Since 1996, I’ve helped clients generate awareness, clicks and conversions via search engines. Over the past decade or more, Amazon has transitioned from a major advertiser on Google to a real threat to Google’s future. According to a Kenshoo study, 56 percent of consumers start product searches on Amazon. That number increases to 2x in a similar BloomReach study. On the seller-side, 63 percent of Amazon Advertisers plan to increase budget next year (a larger percentage increase than Google and Facebook spend). In short, Amazon is the new Google in many respects. If you don’t have a solid Amazon marketing strategy in place, you’re at a disadvantage. This article explores best practices when creating an effective Amazon marketing strategy.

Strategic Planning
Whether you are a manufacturer, physical or online-only retailer, you need to evaluate a presence on Amazon. Many brands are already on Amazon and have been for years, but I regularly talk to small brands and boutique retailers that are not on Amazon and are hesitant to jump in with both feet. To assess the viability of a presence on Amazon, you must build a strategic plan.

Competitive Benchmarking
One of the first and best places to start is to evaluate the competitive landscape. If most of your competitors are on Amazon, that indicates the potential need to remain competitive by joining the fray. Conversely, if your competitors have yet to set up stores on Amazon, it may indicate an opportunity to gain a competitive edge. Manufacturers have a greater challenge, as they must consider the impact on the wholesale/retail channel relationships. They also may have to compete with resellers listing their products on Amazon. Some manufacturers create Amazon-only sub-brands or product lines to protect brand and channel perception. Retailers must also be aware that competitors may be creating ‘unbranded’ stores to protect brand equity, yet still leverage the channel.

Keyword Research
Regardless of the number of competitors, the next logical step is to conduct keyword research to understand which brands and products are most popular and competitive. Within the Amazon platform, sellers will see keywords ranked based on the Best Seller Ranking (BSR), which is determined primarily by sales volume, but includes other variables. While searching on Amazon is helpful, utilizing tools like Google Keyword Planner and MOZ are helping see the entire keyword universe, including search engine traffic. Developing and optimizing keywords specific to each product ASIN is critical to maximizing the visibility and overall SEO performance of your Amazon presence.

Pricing Strategy
Once you’ve identified your product selection, the next step is to develop a pricing strategy. Setting pricing is one of the single greatest influences on ranking factors in product searches. While lowest price is an obvious evaluation criteria, it is not the only factor. The goal on Amazon is to own the “Buy Box” or yellow purchase button associated with every product. Over 90% of Amazon’s $250 billion in sales are triggered by the Buy Box.

While there are a host of dynamic pricing tools available, Amazon provides an ‘Automate Pricing’ tool on Seller Central to help automate pricing decisions.

Buy Box
Amazon uses an algorithm to rank sellers of the same product against each other and rewards the seller with the highest overall ranking with ownership of the Buy Box. The Buy Box is often constantly rotating. Amazon no longer rewards a single seller with the Buy Box on a particular product listing, but instead assigns each seller a percentage of the Buy Box web traffic based on the seller’s ranking. It is still possible to achieve 100% Buy Box ownership, for example, if you are the sole manufacturer & seller of a product, but it has become increasingly more difficult as more sellers enter the Amazon Marketplace. Some sellers have adopted a strategy of purchasing inventory wholesale through other outlets and reselling products on Amazon. This can create frustrations for manufacturers who sell their products on Amazon with the assumption that no one else is listing their products for sale.

A seller’s ranking depends on many factors including seller history, price, shipping time, and fulfillment method, amongst others. The below chart offers a comprehensive list of all the major factors in determining what seller wins the Buy Box.

A common frustration for third-party Amazon sellers is failing to win the Buy Box on product listings where there is little to no competition. This can even happen to sellers who manufacture and sell their own products on Amazon. There are several factors that can prevent a seller from losing out on the Buy Box, despite no competition from other sellers. The most common issues plaguing sellers are their Amazon seller rating, and Amazon’s Buy Box algorithm identifying similar products being sold on and off for a lower price.

Amazon sellers should constantly be monitoring their seller ratings through Amazon’s Brand Health page within Amazon Seller Central and address any issues as soon as possible to get their seller account back in good standing. Amazon tracks its seller ratings on a 30-day period. Failing to meet benchmarks in Late Shipment Rate, Cancellation Rate, Order Defect Rate, etc. will often cause the seller to lose its Buy Box eligibility.

A less widely known issue many sellers experience in losing their Buy Box ranking is how Amazon’s Buy Box algorithm compares the seller’s pricing to identical and similar products both on and off Amazon. If Amazon’s algorithm determines a seller’s pricing to be too high, the seller may lose Buy Box ranking, even if there are no other sellers currently offering the same product on Amazon. To avoid this issue, sellers should avoid marking up their products sold on Amazon compared to any other online channels their products may be sold. Sellers should also research similar products offered both on and off Amazon to ensure their pricing is in-line with typical pricing often seen within the product category. Sellers on Amazon’s Seller Forums have even mentioned that lowering a product’s pricing by as little as $0.01 can have a significant impact on their Buy Box ranking.

Fulfillment
Before we delve into product page optimization and advertising, I want to touch briefly on a key business decision that will influence how you market your products or Amazon store. Before you sell any product on Amazon, you must decide where it will be warehoused, who will manage inventory and shipments and provide customer support. Amazon offers two options: Fulfillment by Seller and Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA). In short, FBA is generally a great way to get product onto Amazon, with potential to reach Prime customers and even achieve Buy Box status, although pricing is typically higher and thus less competitive. In this model, you ship your product to Amazon, and they manage fulfillment for your direct sales. This is ideal for smaller businesses that need to focus on product development and marketing instead of warehousing and logistics. Fulfillment by Seller provides more control over pricing and inventory, however.

Organic Product Page Optimization
There are two primary categories of Amazon ranking criteria: performance and relevance. Performance factors are primarily sales-related, while relevance factors are keyword-related.

Performance Factors
Since Amazon is a retail marketplace that monetizes transactions, product pricing and sales history are important performance factors. A complete list of performance ranking factors include: product pricing, product options (model, color, features, etc.), product availability, sales history, customer reviews and click-volume.

While product options, availability and sales history are straight-forward performance factors, pricing is its own complicated beast. Since pricing drives most purchases on Amazon, setting the right price is critical to generating ideal sales volume, product reviews and rankings. Achieving an optimal conversion rate requires data analysis. To view your current conversion rate, go to: Seller Central: Reports > Business Reports > Detailed Page Sales > Traffic > Unit Session Percentage.

Another key performance factor that is challenging but essential to manage effectively are customer reviews. In 2015, Amazon transitioned to a weighted system for measuring average star ratings. The algorithm for customer reviews is weighted with the following criteria: if a product is purchased at a discount, the age of the review and how helpful the review has been, based on visitor feedback. With a more sophisticated average formula, you can’t incentivize reviews. You can remind customers to write reviews, however. The ideal outreach frequency is twice: after the order has shipped to set the expectation and a few weeks after the product has arrived, to give the customer time to use the product.

Relevance Factors
Like Google’s ranking algorithm, relevance factors focus on keywords embedded in the product page. Amazon’s ranking algorithm is also like Google in that it does not appreciate keyword-stuffing or otherwise negatively impacting the user experience with poorly crafted copy and irrelevant keyword usage. The primary relevance-related ranking evaluation criteria are outlined below:

When it comes to helping Amazon rank your product pages above the competition, it is essential to incorporate relevant keywords across all relevant fields mentioned above. The current keyword character limit is 250 (not including spaces or punctuation). The length limit applies to the total content in all generic keyword fields, with a max of 5 attributes.
When optimizing product pages, Amazon provides guidelines for sellers:

While the algorithm weights brand name, product title and description heavily, sellers cannot underestimate the importance of optimized product images. Best practices for image optimization include: providing high resolution (1,000 x1,000 pixel images) that are zoomable; images of the product from a variety of angles; product label closeup; action shots of the product in-use; product comparison or contextual images of product relating to a human hand or other point of reference; images including informational charts, graphics or even text.

Amazon Advertising
Amazon has transitioned from online retailer to advertising juggernaut in the past decade. Total Amazon US ad revenue in 2020 was previously projected at almost $10 billion. 66% of all product specific searches across the web originate on Amazon. Advertising on Amazon is an effective way to drive traffic and ultimately sales of listed products. It also can be a great tool to boost brand/product awareness & visibility as Amazon sponsored brand and sponsored product ads often appear at the top of search result pages.

Campaign Types
Amazon currently offers three core cad products: Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands, and Sponsored Display.

Eligibility Criteria
Unfortunately, not everyone can take advantage of all of Amazon’s Advertising offerings. Amazon’s Seller Eligibility Criteria include two primary requirements: you must have an active professional seller account and enroll in Amazon Brand Registry to use Sponsored Brand ads. For more information about Amazon Advertising, check out the following links: How it works, Amazon Ads FAQ, Advertising specs and policies
and Amazon Sellers Education YouTube channel.

Bid Strategies
Amazon weighs many parameters to choose a winning bid across campaigns. The ad ranking system includes the following factors: daily budget, keyword relevance, ad rank, ad relevance and buy box eligibility. The advantage of an aggressive spending approach is that you’ll get data more quickly. The more insight you have into impressions, clicks and sales, the more effectively you can build high-performing campaigns and decrease spend as optimization strategies make an impact.

Measurement
Be sure to build ad campaigns to be profitable, which means understanding your break-even Advertising Cost of Sale (ACoS). As a key performance indicator, the ACoS indicates the ratio of ad spend to targeted sales. The chart below from SELLICS outlines the basic ACoS math:

Additional Amplification
Beyond optimizing product pages for organic Amazon searches and mastering AMS offerings to increase reach and sales, there are other ways to increase traffic to your Amazon store, like social media and blog posts. Product posts and promotions can perform well on social media, but descriptive blog posts linking to product pages can perform even better, both in terms of organic search rankings and conversions, since shoppers are already engaged with your brand. Email marketing is another way to drive traffic to Amazon product pages, especially if you do not sell direct on your website. Don’t forget to create an affiliate link to maximize margins.

With more than half of all product searches beginning on Amazon, manufacturers and retailers can no longer afford to ignore the marketing juggernaut. A successful Amazon presence requires research, planning and a long-term commitment. After conducting competitive research, setting pricing and optimizing product pages, focus your efforts on advertising to maximize reach and conversions. As the old saying goes, ‘if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.’ If you need help with your Amazon marketing program, help is available.

The post Effective Amazon Marketing Strategies for 2021 appeared first on SEMpdx.

I first discovered the power of incorporating keywords into websites to boost rankings in 1996. By adding a desirable keyword into the META keyword tag and repeating it frequently in the text, I ranked clients’ websites on popular search engines like WebCrawler and Lycos. It wasn’t simple however, as I was optimizing client websites for 14 search engines, which all had differing algorithms. While much has changed since Google introduced PageRank, many of the fundamentals I refined in the 90s still apply.

I originally shared my philosophy on search engine optimization (SEO) a decade ago with The 3 C’s of SEO. In my article, I identified three primary areas of focus for successful SEO: content, code and credibility. While social media has influenced Google’s algorithm, the 3 C’s still apply today. In this article, I will outline the most common (and timeless) mistakes and misconceptions about SEO.

Content
One of the most formidable challenges with SEO is the creation of fresh, unique, relevant and compelling content. Creating copy, photography, infographics, video or other forms of content is both time-consuming and costly. Over the past few years, Google has dedicated substantial time improving the algorithm’s understanding of natural language. With the BERT update in 2019, context came into play, and marketers were presented with another challenge: supporting search intent. As Google’s search algorithm develops and matures, marketers make a few common mistakes when attempting SEO without adult supervision, most of which centers around quality, relevance, and search intent.

For starters, marketers often mistake the value of quantity vs. quality of content. Nowadays, Google has thousands of page graders who manually review individual web pages, and their major criteria includes E-A-T which stands for Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. In short, Google wants to ensure that websites within their search engine provide up-to-date, factual information that users can trust. Google places strict responsibility on pages that offer medical information, financial information, or other highly impactful topics. These pages are aptly referred to as “Your Money or Your Life” pages because the information could significantly affect one’s livelihood, happiness, financial situation, or safety. Ecommerce sites are included within this category as a result of customers imputing credit card information. Thus, marketers should avoid generic, unprofessional or generally low-quality content, which includes outdated information, short blog posts, fact-less articles or poor-quality images and video.

When creating new content for a website, too many marketers fail to keep voice search in mind. While voice search can be performed through voice assistants such as Amazon Alexa and Google Home, the majority of voice searches are now completed through smartphones using Siri and Google Assistant. Not only are queries more informal and conversational, but they also tend to be phrased in the form of an actual question instead of 3-5 topical keywords. A related oversight by some marketers is the failure to localize content for different countries, languages or business locations. The internet is both global and local and Google rewards brands that understand this fact.

Even if marketers can create truly compelling content, some are still working off outdated strategies. The biggest mistake website content can make is not supporting search intent. If the information on your page does not provide a valuable resource to what a searcher needs, Google will never offer your site to their users. How can we begin to understand search intent? Break down queries and target keywords to construct your content. Does the searcher need an answer to a question? Is the searcher looking to do research or make a purchase? Developing your content to address the answers will help prove that your website will provide the best possible support to searchers which gets rewarded with better rankings.

Technical/Code
Google cares a great deal about the technical makeup and performance of websites which involves site speed, schema markup, and user experience. Content Management Systems (CMS) such as WordPress and Shopify are incredible tools that allow novice website owners to create complex and personalized websites without coding knowledge or experience. Even so, there are a handful of technical strategies to consider, and to forego any could significantly impact a website’s visibility. First and foremost, the code must be clean, fast, and responsive. Second, a website should always utilize some form of schema markup which not only provides a search engine with coded information about elements on a page, but it qualifies your website to show in Google’s Rich Results which means more attention and engagement.

The most common problem with CMS platforms is that users rely on plugins to install advanced functionality onto a website which comes with large amounts of code that slows down site speed. Site speed is not only important from a user-experience perspective, but poor site speed can impact how many pages a search engine can crawl. Google recognizes and rewards exceptional user experiences, which includes designing with mobile users in mind. Also known as responsive design, mobile-friendly websites render a page differently depending on screen size. Luckily, Google provides several testing tools that provide clear opportunities for improving site speed.

With or without a CMS platform, websites should be designed with CSS, minimal JavaScript and optimized image and video files for maximum speed and usability. Far too many websites rely on outdated versions of HTML or other coding platforms, or have been built or rebuilt over the years, making them slower, less reliable and more difficult to index. I still come across prospective clients that do not have a current XML sitemap or robots.txt files to help guide search engines. Marketers may also not realize the impact of a sites’ architecture and structure can impact rankings. Historically, Google has preferred a flatter site hierarchy, which sometimes directly conflicted with a deeper structure that was more challenging to navigate and spider.

Google is constantly changing how information gets displayed and how users can interact with results. This means that marketers have endless opportunities to enhance the appearance of their website which ultimately helps to stand out against competitors. To qualify, websites must utilize structured data on appropriate pages. The most accepted form of structured data is JSON-LD which stands for JavaScript Object Notation for Linked Data, and there are hundreds of acceptable schema types that websites can use. Currently, FAQ schema is the popular type; however, the other commonly used types include local business schema, product schema, and video schema.

While I haven’t experienced code trickery like cloaking for years, some marketers are still committed to black and grey hat SEO, meaning they are willing to bend or break rules for short-term gains. Unfortunately, Google always catches up and once penalized, websites may not recover for months, if ever. Along the same lines, many sites are not properly secured with an active SSL certificate which means trustworthiness suffers. While we’re on the topic of trickery, it should be noted that Google does not like duplicate content, whether intended or not.

The final area of oversight relating to code best practices, revolves around a website’s metadata. Believe it or not, despite a proactive focus on SEO, many marketers fail to incorporate keywords where it matters most: Title and header tags. While meta descriptions no longer directly impact rankings, they do serve as the elevator pitch to a webpage which means they do impact click-through-rate (CTR). To Google, a website with a lower CTR means it was a bad match or a poor resource to searchers. Additional keyword-optimization opportunities include ALT tags, anchor text and file names.

User Experience
Search engines want to provide their users with the best possible resources available which does not include a website that is slow, unaccommodating, or malfunctioning. Throughout the content development and technical support, marketers often overlook whether or not their website provides a positive experience.

Recently, Google has announced that the Core Web Vitals scores will be considered as ranking signals come May of 2021. The Core Web Vitals scores measure page experience and focus on three major components: loading (CLS), interactivity (FID), and visual stability (CLS). Google rarely provides warnings on algorithm or ranking signal updates, and it would be a mistake to not take advantage of it. It is also important to note that the Core Web Vitals and technical makeup of web pages go hand in hand, so websites with poor technical components will most likely have poor Core Web Vitals scores.

Another major mistake marketers make with regards to user experience – ignoring or unfamiliarity with ADA Compliance. Websites are now responsible for ensuring that websites are fully accessible to all users, and that can be harder than it sounds. For example, visually impaired users rely on screen readers to navigate throughout a website. A button simply labeled “Click Here” makes it impossible for that user to know where that button will lead to. Other common web features that are not ADA compliant include: flashing graphics, videos that auto play without the control to stop it, and images without any set alt-text.

Credibility
While the need for quality content and clean code has not changed in the last 20 years of search engine marketing, credibility factors have changed dramatically. Since Google came on the scene in 1998, with an innovative algorithm that focused on the hub-and-spoke model of authority, SEO professionals have put a good deal of effort into securing inbound links. Unfortunately, too many marketers have forsaken quality links (from popular and reputable websites) for quantity (typically lower quality websites with questionable domain authority).

We’ve known for years that quality trumps quantity when it comes to inbound links. Some marketers are holding out on that insight and continue to purchase links from high domain authority websites or even create or buy into link farms, which has been out-of-vogue for nearly a decade, but still retains the allure for desperate marketers.

While links continue to be a major focus for SEO professionals, there has been discussion around the weighting of inbound links in Google’s algorithm. Recent research unveiled by Stone Temple Consulting at SEMpdx Engage Conference, indicates that links are still a significant factor in the ranking algorithm. The vote of confidence an inbound link (or citation) provides a website is still a key factor and should be considered heavily in marketing efforts.

One area that marketers continue to debate is the impact of SEO initiatives on graphic design, copywriting and coding. In the early days of Internet marketing, I would get into arguments with my interactive agency counterparts about copy, code and design, in which SEO best practices would appear to conflict with design best practices. That issue has largely resolved itself, as Google has become more sophisticated and focuses more on the user experience and high value content. As a result, sites that are beautifully designed with unique content and artful coding tend to out-rank sites designed solely for SEO and not the user.

Credibility covers a host of elements, many of which are unknown or misunderstood by unwashed marketers. One example is domain history, which includes the age of the domain and when it expires. Google likes old domains that expire many years from now, so stop auto-renewing annually and renew every 5-10 years. Domain authority, which is available via Moz, indicates how likely the site is to rank for unbranded terms. A strong domain authority is over 50 out of 100. Off-site factors including quality and quantity of inbound links weigh heavily in the Open Site Explorer domain authority ranking.

A clear majority of businesses have a formal address. Regardless, every business should claim and optimize its Google My Business local listing. The biggest mistake in this aspect is most marketers believe small, local businesses should have an optimized Google My Business profile. However, all businesses and corporations should have an up-to-date GMB profile which is now the top consideration for local SEO rankings. Far too often, marketers overlook the claiming and optimizing of local listings, including Facebook, Yelp and other third-party feed providers for maps and business directories. Another factor related to local listings is reviews. Business reviews can make or break a business, and to take this a step further, reviews must be addressed, particularly reviews on your GMB. Marketers are particularly bad about ignoring bad reviews and not securing a meaningful number of positive reviews, which directly impact revenue, per recent research. Adding one additional star in the 5-star economy, adds 9 percent to topline revenue.

Learn from the mistakes of others and follow best practices when optimizing your website. I’ve included a few helpful SEO resources below, to ensure you are up-to-speed on the latest SEO strategies, tactics and tools.

The post 22 Common SEO Mistakes To Avoid in 2021 appeared first on SEMpdx.

Advanced Facebook & Instagram Advertising in 2019 & Beyond
Taught by Tim Halloran of Aimclear fame, this all-day masterclass workshop provided a deep dive into the Facebook/Instagram adverting platform. Out of respect for those paying extra for these deep-dive workshops, I’m only going to share a few select nuggets. The first is to remember that audiences are discreetly different, but often overlap. To reduce duplication of efforts, consider merging audiences if the overlap is greater than 35%. Not being a Facebook advertising expert like my teammates at Anvil, I found this session to be very technical, but beneficial to those managing campaigns daily.

The Power of Purpose
Mike Dupree from Twitter talked about the needs and benefits of brand purpose in terms of connecting with customers. Social activism is on the rise, especially amongst younger generations. Another opportunity Dupree outlined is for brands to be an “island of safety” during turbulent times. Fun fact: 75 percent of consumers expect brands to take a stance on political or social issues and 30 percent are buying or boycotting based on that stance. He then outlined key steps for leveraging purpose: 1) brand permission (do we have a right to be here?) 2) take a stand without taking sides 3) demonstration > communication 4) organizational decision. He cited a few brands demonstrating purpose through advertising (Nike’s Just Do It), REI closing the stores for Black Friday with the #optoutside campaign, HBO with the Rock The Vote campaign and the Countrytime Lemonade Legal Ade campaign.

B2B Account-Based Marketing: Align Your Digital Marketing for Sales Success
Bob Tripathi talked about account-based marketing (ABM) best practices. He discussed the B2B Lifecycle, emphasizing the need for alignment across the organization (agreed). This is particularly important due to the complexity of the technology and need for integration across teams within the organization. Through a host of visuals, Tripathi outlined key steps in the planning process when building an ABM program. He emphasized the importance of partnership between sales and marketing, knowing that can be challenging. In his example, Tripathi illustrates a sales funnel with a 10% conversion rate from initial awareness of target account to closed deal. This is a very reasonable estimate, based on our experience, if implemented properly. Tip: ensure decision-makers, approvers and influencers are included in the contact database or target marketing efforts. Tripathi outlined key responsibilities by department. Marketing owns content, nurturing emails, lead capture and scoring. Sales owns meetings with marketing and/or sales qualified leads (MQL/SQL), building relationships and closing deals. Tripathi then went through the steps of building an ABM campaign in detail, starting with developing a target account list and contact database. This step requires close collaboration with the sales team, who should know exactly who they want to target. He recommends starting small, with 2 verticals and a handful of target accounts as proof of concept. With each target account having an average of 5 contacts, the database grows quickly. Get buy-in from senior management with early wins to provide more support for a broader rollout. The next step is mapping out content type by objective (product or service) and persona. Each persona should have a unique and relevant experience based on role and pain points. Once the content is mapped to each prospect journey, the next step is creating the content assets. Tripathi reminded the audience that print direct mail works. In terms of outreach via advertising, he mentioned Facebook Business, Twitter Business as well as standard players like Google and LinkedIn more commonly associated with B2B targeting. He gave a shout out to LinkedIn InMail at $.30 per send. Ensure your platform tracks all forms of activity and touchpoints along the journey. Lead scoring should be thought out carefully, to minimize false positives while generating a meaningful number of leads. Lastly, Tripathi recommends forecasting your lead funnel for planning purposes.

Three Keys to Mastering B2B Email Like a Jazz Musician
Cliff Seal from Salesforce compared famous jazz musicians with smart email marketing. He cited research, including one study where emails generated 5x higher unique open when personalizing subject line vs. just the first name. Cliff suggested running one statistically significant test every month, focusing more in generating data more than looking for a clear winner. He also cited a stat: 89 percent of B2B buyers expect companies to understand their business needs and expectations, which is very unrealistic, especially when lacking enough data. The workaround is by starting with available data, then segment, tailor and repeat. Cliff reminded the audience to customize emails in real-time based on behavior to maximize performance.

Website Migration: What to Do Pre, During and Post
Samantha Kermode discussed effective migration strategies. She opened with a pre-site migration audit, looking at tags, site speed, images and content freshness. Samantha highly recommends adding the current features, including schema markup, Twitter cards, Facebook Open Graph, Hreflang, plugins and Google AMP. I would add next gen image formats to that list. She also reminded the audience NOT to forget to use “noindex” in your robots.txt properly (hiding the new site before it’s live and removing the restriction when it is live. I’ve personally seen many larger brands lose rankings when failing to remove the “noindex” tag. Make sure to test the site (ScreamingFrog is good) to identify broken links, particularly 404s. Samantha also recommends capturing the inbound links with 301 redirects to maintain domain authority. She recommends the tool httpstatus. Additionally, a new XML site map will tell Google what pages matter and where to go to index them. During Launch mode, Samantha recommends monitoring XML sitemap, robots.txt, 301 redirects and rankings. With Post launch, continue with the previously mentioned activity, with additional efforts around reclaiming backlinks (especially with high domain authority) and optimizing conversion rates.

Extend Your Reach through Content & Influence Marketing
Juanika Cuthbertson of Ladypreneur Academy outlined best practices for content and influencer marketing. Juanika opened with the idea of creating consistency and intentionality around your brand. Specifically, she wanted the audience to think about brand voice, as that provides an essential foundation for content and influencer marketing. Juanika shared examples of brand voice in social and advertising, including Wendy’s, Pampers and jetBlue. She outlined which types of content work best for each stage of the customer journey, from awareness to purchase decision. Think about which platforms, media format and content types resonate for each stage and get it out there.

How to Become a Thought Leader on LinkedIn
Ty Heath from LinkedIn talked about my favorite topic: thought leadership. As a top B2B digital marketing influencer (according to BuzzSumo, not my Mother) with over 17,000 LinkedIn connections, I have a personal interest in this session. Ty talked about the importance of thought leadership across the spectrum, beyond traditional sales and marketing: employee and customer engagement as well as general inspiration. I disagree with Ty that sharing (other source) content on social is not thought leadership: I believe there is value in being a filter for others that don’t have the time to read every article and blog post on the Internet relating to your area of expertise. In a world of declining trust in corporations, thought leadership provides a unique opportunity to build trust with prospects and customers. According to recent research, social engagement by C-level executives increases reach and engagement by 5X. Ty outlined four steps for thought leadership on LinkedIn. 1. Create compelling content 2. Define your approach 3. Engage and nurture your audience 4. Measure and optimize. She briefly outlined a methodology LinkedIn uses for its own thought leadership: SCORE. S: Structure (content should follow a traditional story arc, yet maintain simplicity for better engagement and recall); C: Contrarian (makes it interesting and allows you to stand out); O: Ownable (make it distinctive and relevant to your brand); R: Replication (makes it valuable, like blockbuster model Disney utilizes); E: Expertise (making it profitable – as it appeals across the broadest spectrum of decision makers and influencers). Most of the session validated my thoughts on leveraging LinkedIn, outlined in this article: How to Ramp up Revenue in One Week or Less.

Digital Summit Charlotte was packed with insightful nuggets provided by expert speakers. I recommend attending a future event in a city near you. If you’re interested in learning more about podcasting, which was my topic, you can read my article on the topic: How to Extend Your Brand by Building a Podcast Strategy.

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In their quest for the most useful search result, Google’s algorithm has placed increasing weight on social media signals including citations, likes, comments, and shares. Brands that have hesitated to enter the social media fracas have paid a price in terms of organic search rankings. Conversely, brands who embraced social early have benefitted from the additional boost in visibility. The integration of social media tactics into search engine optimization (SEO) efforts can maximize the impact of those efforts on brand visibility, credibility, and sales. The following seven steps will ensure an optimal organic search engine presence.

Step 1: Claim & Optimize Social Profiles
The first and most important step in improving your organic search visibility via social media is to ensure you’ve created profiles on the top platforms. It only takes a few minutes to claim a profile on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Google+, Instagram, and Pinterest. Be sure to secure your brand name as your handle, as it typically becomes the URL and is your best performing keyword in search results. Make sure to incorporate relevant industry keywords into your biography and status updates to boost non-branded search visibility. If you only have time to claim one profile, make sure it is Google+, as there is no such thing as SEO on Google without a Google+ company profile.

Step 2: Listen, Learn & Apply
In case you haven’t yet figured it out, social media is the world’s largest focus group. Every day, millions of people publish their thoughts, opinions, and insights about your company, competitors, and industry. Analyzing keywords and phrases posted on social media provides insights into future content opportunities for SEO. When you have insights into current trends, you can create unique, timely, and compelling content for your website, blog, and social profiles. Utilize Google, social platform search, and related tools (like FollowerWonk) to identify industry influencers and leverage your content to engage target constituents. The goal: seek the Share, which is the most powerful vote of confidence regarding the quality of your content and credibility of your website.

Step 3: Integrate with Website
In order to maximize the value of your investment in social media, it is important to close the loop between your social profiles and website. The first step is to embed links to your primary social media profiles into your website (ideally at the header or footer of your template, so that they appear on every page for optimal visibility). This will tell Google and site visitors that you have a social media presence worth visiting. The second step is to embed social sharing buttons (again, ideally on every page) so that visitors can easily share your content via their social media profiles without having to navigate away and lose their browsing momentum. I mentioned leveraging the power of the share, and this is the easiest way to facilitate that sharing. The third step is to integrate feeds from your social profiles into your website (ideally the home page). This is a great way to keep your website content fresh and interesting to users and search engines. Utilizing tools like Postano will aid in content syndication, curation, and measurement of engagement. Last but not least, consider syndicating customer reviews from third-party websites on your own website. Review sites are often highly visible and respected, and offer critical third-party validation. Martin Hospitality on the Oregon Coast incorporates reviews from TripAdvisor and other platforms into their websites to boost credibility.

Step 4: Develop Winning Content
Content has always been King. There is no such thing as a social media or SEO strategy without content. Leverage the research performed in Step 2 to create shareable content. Google loves multimedia, so think about a multi-dimensional media content strategy. The most efficient approach to content creation is to start with HD video, as one 60-second recording can be repurposed to YouTube, Vimeo, and Facebook, and edited down for Instagram (15 seconds) and Vine (6 seconds). That same HD video also provides more than 1 million still images (for Pinterest and Instagram), and 60 seconds of audio (for iTunes), and can also be transcribed into text for a blog post or an article. Post and syndicate the content on your website and across your social media profiles for maximum reach and engagement.

Step 5: Go Local, Mobile & Social with Search
According to Search Engine Watch, 50 percent of mobile searches have local intent and 61 percent of those mobile searches result in a purchase. As such, mobile search and social cannot be ignored, especially by retail brands. The first step in creating a meaningful local presence is to claim and optimize your local listings on search engines, directories, and review sites. Google and Yelp are two of the most important platforms in this arena. Once claimed and populated with content, it is essential to monitor and update the listings regularly, as freshness is important. Be sure to optimize your website for local search as well, utilizing Schema.org Local Business markup and Google Maps for driving directions.

Step 6: Monitor Social Mentions & Citations
Among the primary signals influencing search rankings are mentions of your brand in social media. Even if all mentions of your brand are positive (which is unlikely), it is essential to monitor social conversations. Quickly address negative reviews and be sure to celebrate and syndicate positive reviews. Engage constituents in conversation to build rapport and trust. Ask and answer questions about your brand or industry and encourage offline-to-online engagement where possible, including encouraging happy customers to post reviews based on their recent experience. This content will all be factored into your rankings. For bonus points, incorporate positive reviews into your paid advertising and offline marketing.

Step 7: Measure & Optimize
What gets measured gets managed, as my old boss used to say. In order to get the most out of your search and social marketing efforts, it is essential to continuously measure and optimize. While there are limitless ways to measure the impact of social media on your search visibility, there are a few primary metrics on which to focus. The first set of metrics relates to the impact of your presence in social media, and includes shares, comments, and brand or website mentions (aka citations). The higher the numbers, the more credible your social presence and the greater the likelihood that they will positively impact search rankings. The second set of metrics, which are further down the funnel, relate to the impact of social media on your website. These metrics include level of visibility in targeted search rankings, the associated traffic to your website, and any resulting leads or sales (which require conversion tracking in your analytics to properly measure). Last but not least, it is worthwhile to measure overall sentiment and related qualitative metrics, which are likely to impact site traffic, rankings and sales. Regularly tweak your content based on insights from analytics to maximize your rankings.

Due to recent changes in consumer behavior, social media will continue to impact search engine rankings and SEO strategy. By integrating social media with your search marketing efforts, you will see a measurable and positive impact on your rankings, traffic and ultimately, sales. Follow the seven steps outlined above and see a return on your marketing investment in the coming year, before your competitors figure it out.

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Building A Foundation
The first step in developing an effective SEO+PR strategy is to create a dedicated News Room – a dedicated resource for the media and analyst community. Typically consisting of FAQs, backgrounders, press releases, event calendars, awards & recognition and links to coverage, the online News Room is a one-stop shop for the press, yet it also provides value to prospects, customers, partners and peers. The 3.0 News Room may include “socialized” elements including a dedicated PR-focused blog, social profiles and even rich media content like webinars, images, audio, video and a Google News Sitemap. Don’t forget to enable your News Room with social “share” buttons for all relevant content, since social signals are a key factor in rankings (and certainly improve viral shareability). Over time, it’s also advantageous to develop a library of blog posts, articles, presentations and even books that validate your commitment and industry credentials. Those truly interested in building “pundit” or “guru” status should understand and maximize Google’s AuthorRank.

Developing A Story
Without complete synergy between the SEO and PR teams, creating and promoting compelling content can be challenging. Google news & trends are the natural places to initiate story research and development, as both offer insights into keywords and concepts essential to any successful search and PR campaign. Once an idea is formulated, the next step is to conduct detailed research to identify industry influencers across publications, blogs and the social graph. While keyword and directory research may create an initial list of candidates, thorough vetting of individual and organizational credibility (PageRank, Klout, etc.) is recommended to help refine and tier your list. Once you’ve finalized your list, leverage knowledge of their personalities, areas of interests (or beats) and previous writings (which may include competitor mentions) to formulate a compelling “pitch.” If direct outreach may not be ideal or effective, consider leveraging your network or the community by seeding forums or blogs with key messages and supporting content to foster a groundswell of support. Continue to facilitate conversation even after the initial goal is achieved (i.e. coverage, link or citation), as long-term relationships are the backbone of effective PR programs.

Building Authoritative Content
Beyond building a well-designed News Room and conducting regular outreach to your targeted media list – a truly successful SEO+PR campaign includes regular development of foundational content including press releases, articles and speaking engagements. To ensure proper momentum with PR activities, create, optimize and syndicate press releases on a monthly (or otherwise appropriate) basis. Press releases can still be effective at generating visibility in news search engines and social media, which in turn helps fuel inbound links, even if they do not directly result in coverage. For maximum visibility, consider utilizing a paid service like PRWeb to distribute the press release, and include rich media elements like photos, audio or video. Paid services offer more advanced reporting beyond basic distribution, including views and clicks. To maximize visibility on industry publications and blogs, become a regular guest contributor. If you’re internal team lacks the bandwidth or skills to regularly produce timely articles, consider hiring a freelancer or even an industry pundit (budget and regulatory issues aside). Lastly, submit for relevant speaking opportunities, as they not only build industry visibility and credibility, but also generate high-quality inbound links from bios and session abstracts on event sites. The same is true for industry awards and certification opportunities.

Securing Authoritative Links
Regardless of the level of diligence surrounding initial research and message crafting, at the end of the day, a SEO/PR campaign’s success ultimately relies on the quality of the “offer” which may vary based on the topic, business, objective and messenger. More than a decade ago, I worked for a consumer electronics e-retailer and quickly realized I could not compete with Best Buy’s marketing muscle. In order to compete for awareness, links and traffic, I sent sample product to key influencers for review and promotional purposes. In one case, I sent two digital cameras to Chris Pirillo – one to give away to as a partner promotion and another to “review” (which we did not ask him to return). The result was exposure to hundreds of thousands of potential buyers through the review and giveaway, and ultimately tens of thousands of dollars in sales (tracked through affiliate links). Alternative offers that have a similar ability to gain attention include limited trials, product demos, special contests or promotions. Companies lacking the ability to discount or give away product are relegated to creating compelling, unique content the target influencer would be happy to share (think Red Bull Stratos). When the “earned media” approach fails to produce a desirable link, consider securing strategic sponsorships that offer inbound link opportunities (often with a greater level of control over anchor text and link destination).

Measuring Success
The traditional PR measurement model, which I learned about early in my career, focused on the equivalent advertising value of coverage (usually in column inches of ink). Conversely, traditional SEO measurement models focused on rankings for targeted terms and resulting traffic to a website. Both fall short of more compelling goals like an ability to effectively generate qualified leads or sales. Somewhere in between, consider measuring the quality of links (PageRank) and direct traffic from those links (via analytics and marketing automation). To maximize the impact of all your hard work, do not forget the critical last mile: syndicate all optimized PR content (press releases, articles, rich media, etc.) via social and other marketing channels, including any resulting coverage. Remember to “vote” for your SEO/PR content on third party websites via social share buttons. For bonus points, also track citations/mentions and analyze sentiment to truly understand the overall impact of your SEO+PR efforts.

By following the five steps outlined above, you will see a meaningful increase in quality inbound links, resulting in greater industry visibility, authority and ultimately revenue. As an SEO+PR professional who’s built an entire digital marketing career including 4 businesses and 2 organizations with this approach, I can tell you it works quite well.

Related Articles
How to Become a Social Media Guru in 3 Easy Steps
SEM PR – When Search Engine Marketing Meets Public Relations Part 1 and Part 2
Online Reputation Management: Seven Strategies to Build Your Brand

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Since I first attended SES in Boston, I’ve noticed the event has changed along with the industry. For starters, the overall energy level has waned as the SES appeals to a more broad and corporate audience. Back in the early days, you could sense the nervous energy and appreciated the “insider information” now outlawed by legal departments.

On the flip side, the content has evolved to a more strategic level, which I appreciate as a business owner. There are certainly more opportunities for hand-on training through SEMPO Institute and Search Engine Academy that take some of the burden off of SES. The parties continue to impress, however.

While they may not be quite as edgy and wild as in the past, the boys at Webmaster Radio surely know how to throw a SearchBash. The presenters are consistently better than in the past, yet I’m still surprised that some were truly rusty and tended to be overly self-promotional on occasion. But we search marketing professionals don’t attend SES for the parties or presenters as much as we do for the content and networking.

Unfortunately for me, I was so busy blogging and keeping things running at Anvil Media, that I wasn’t able to partake in much of the networking opportunities (lunches and some parties). That said, I was able to take away a few nuggets from the content, which I’ll summarize for those that don’t have the time to read my blog posts.

Based on a non-scientific analysis of session attendance and overheard conversations, I believe the hottest single topic was social media (including platforms, monitoring and measurement tools, optimization techniques, link development and reputation management strategies). Secondarily, I there was a bit of buzz about local and mobile search, but it’s still so early in the game that the following is still relatively small.

Perhaps the most inspirational session was Andrew Tomkins keynote this morning about the future of search. Essentially, the Chief Scientist at Yahoo! Research outlined a new abstract-based approach to search results that I found intuitive, powerful and inspiring. We’ll see if my judgment amounts to much, however. All-in-all, an educational event with a touch of inspiration.

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