Multiple changes have taken place in the digital world since our generation is developing with the trending technologies. Some were successful, but others were utterly confusing, to say the least. However, during this process, some subtle SEO trends came into the picture. For instance, Google’s decision to completely put a full stop on Google Authorship was clear. The changes which took place made one thing very evident; this decision affected all the industries. Know more about the Top 6 SEO Trends that will Dominate 2018.

Let’s take a sneak look at five facts every professional CMO needs to know about SEO in 2018.

#1. Google Penalizes Paid Links

Purchasing links from link networks used to be the quickest and easiest way to get your site listed high in organic search rankings. Now, buying links will get you penalized and your search traffic will all but disappear. Google’s statistics will be updated more frequently and on a daily basis which actually means that sites buying links will be identified much more quickly than in the past. The updates will be sent out over longer periods of time, making it more difficult to identify what is causing your rankings to fall – that is, if you do in fact see your traffic falling.

#2. Mobile responsive website

If your site is difficult to view and/or read on a smartphone or tablet, there is no chance that the visitor will stay on your site for very long. More and more buyers of professional services are going online to find and search firms before they engage in a conversation with you. As more and more of these same buyers are using mobiles in their daily lives, it’s inevitable that a higher proportion of website traffic will come from these instruments.

#3. SEO no longer a single entity

Nowadays, SEO comprises of content marketing, social media, email marketing, copywriting, research, and various other elements. The times of going to the back end of a site and impending hidden keywords are over. There was a time when you could hire someone with some technical SEO knowledge and see an improvement. Put lots of keyword-rich anchor text here, buy some links there, and voila! – you would see some instant results. If you can avoid using URL links, it would be good. If you have more than two URL links, it's probably worth making a serious investment to rewrite them as still, readable, text.

#4. More investment in exceptional SEO

More investment of time and resources is a given if we focus a lot of time in SEO. The stepping stones of your campaign need to include content which should be both useful and shareable. This content should be portrayed in different formats. Blog posts, videos, reports, and e-books are few examples. In order to structure this content, you will need authors, marketing strategists, and subject experts – all working together. There are exceptions like those Google enables for developers seeking to use the hashbang format for dynamic AJAX applications. However, even these aren't nearly as clean, visitor-friendly, or simply from an SEO perspective as statically rewritten URLs. Sites from Amazon all the way to Twitter have found tremendous benefit in simplifying their previously complex and hash/hashbang-employing URLs. If you can, please avoid it.

#5. Prospects of every stratum should be given importance

Some diverse techniques are used for tracking clicks (like those inserted by popular social sharing apps such as Buffer). In general, these don't cause a huge problem, but they may make for some awkwardly long URLs. Use your own sensibility whether the tracking technique benefits or outweigh the negatives. A study from a 2014 RadiumOne suggests that social sharing (which has positive, but usually indirect impacts on SEO) with shorter URLs that clearly communicate the site and content perform better than non-branded short or long, unclear URL strings. Let us discuss a quick example. An owner of a management consulting firm only cares about the people that are engaging with his firm’s content that could possibly be business prospects. If business prospects are engaging with your content, that is great. We should always make it a point that our content is engaging and it is written in the prospect’s language. The language will make a huge difference because it’s not always what you say, but how you say it. Being on top of the search page is every business’ need today, but since organic positions cannot be bought in this day and age, we need to build up the framework strategically. For consultation and strategically building your business chart, please contact us.

Key Takeaways:

• Love it or hate it, SEO isn't dead.
• Marketers are spending more on SEO, which means more competition.
• Content marketing and social media combined is the best, holistic approach to SEO.
• More traffic and higher conversions come from mobile.
• Organic search leads convert higher than social and outbound leads

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If search engine optimization (SEO) is something that you are interested in but don't know how to get started, contact us today to schedule your marketing analysis.

If you have just begun your startup journey, you might be aware of the big challenges you may have to face ahead, such as lack of big marketing funds, or a lean customer base. Due to the unique problems that most of the startups face, most of the startups resort to social media channels and post regularly in it. While this tactic might gather you many fans and followers, this will not do much to leverage your marketing strategy in the long run. This is the reason why many good startups are not able to sustain themselves even after making a fantastic entry in the market. According to a report by CB Insights, the two major roadblocks in the startup's journey are high entry level barriers at 42% and shortage of cash at 29%. Inbound marketing provides a systematic and customer centric marketing strategy which will help you to drive ROI. Inbound marketing focuses a lot on nurturing leads, and uses a number of tools such as SEO, SEM, or even email marketing in many cases. This process requires you to build your buyer’s persona which is required in targeted communications to your buyers. Gathering all this information helps you know your buyers better, and enables you to create specific content for each individual buyer persona. Inbound marketing provides the solution to all the marketing needs of startups, SMEs and other business. The real struggle for any startup is to reach out to their potential customers, since you want people to know about your products and services. It is very essential for them to gain an online presence and be an active part of discussions. Inbound marketing proves to be the most effective and efficient marketing method – especially for SMEs and startups, since they lack big funds for marketing during their initial phases.

How startups can leverage Inbound Marketing

Inbound marketing is an approach which focuses on all the overall elements of a marketing strategy. It emphasises on optimizing a consumer’s experience on each stage of his journey, i.e., attraction, consideration, close and delight. It focuses on building a long-term relationship between customers and the business. Its main idea is to capture leads with high interest or need by building up a level of trust with the customers. For this purpose, it emphasises on optimizing the user’s experience at every stage of his interaction with the business by providing relevant solutions to their problems and/or needs at every stage of their interaction. Hence, apart from the initial stages of attraction and consideration in a buyer’s journey, it also focuses on the delight stage, and thus helps build trust and credibility of the business among its customers. Ultimately, this goes a long way to increase the sales and reach of the business. Also, by using inbound methodology, you target customers who are genuinely interested in your product or service. It makes proper use of various interactive and appealing mediums of attracting customers such as blogs, ebooks, whitepapers, infographics, videos, etc. Hence, the retention rate of customers in inbound marketing is generally high, as compared to traditional marketing methods since you are targeting only potential customers who are genuinely interested in your product or service. Another great advantage of implementing inbound marketing strategy is that it uses quality content with the help of SEO and SMO to drive traffic to your website. Thus, it emphasises the generation of leads by drawing traffic organically. Hence, it helps to increase ROI and sales through customer retention. Another development in the sphere of inbound marketing has been the emergence of marketing automation tools. These are softwares which help to streamline marketing actions by automating repetitive tasks such as emails, social media, and other website actions. Thus, it eases the work of the marketers, and performs these tasks with a high level of accuracy. It enables a company to nurture prospects with highly personalized and useful content which help convert prospects into customers, and these customers into highly delighted and satisfied ones. Thus, marketing automation tools such as HubSpot helps to bring desired results for the company through the medium of inbound marketing. It saves time by bridging the gap between the sales and marketing teams of startups and SMEs. It is the best bet for startups and SMEs since it helps to bring qualified leads in a cost-effective manner.

Conclusion

Traditional marketing methods essentially took the one-way communication route, whereas inbound marketing provides a channel of communication between the users and the brand. It emphasises on fulfilling the needs and queries of the users through relevant and informative content. The biggest challenge for any startup or SME in its initial phase is to reach out to its potential customers and generate leads in a cost-effective manner. By publishing useful and accurate content and optimizing it according to your buyer persona, inbound marketing helps to drive prospects to your website. Thus, it is an ROI-driven approach, which is expected to grow in the coming days. It can be incredibly useful for startups and SME’s who want to raise the awareness of their brand online.

The way social media was a buzz word in 2008, influencer marketing is going through the same nowadays. Back then I still remember how I had to explain, "what", "why" and "how" of social media to our prospective new clients. Thankfully "influencer marketing" doesn't have that much problem and is quite adaptive amongst the marketing professionals. But, now the problem is something else, it is the understanding of influencer marketing. It is not about the "What" but "How"! If you don't already know, influencer marketing is a type of marketing where the focus is on individuals (having high reach) than the target market as a whole. In general terms, it is widely used for online influencers like youtubers, Instagrammers, bloggers or tweeps having high online reach. On the basis of the content published, there are 4 categories of influencers:

1. Educators (help followers with content having insights)
2. Coaches (help followers with content and engage with them via tweets/comments)
3. Entertainers (create content which entertain the followers and further engage and inspire them)
4. Charismatics (create content which is based on the insights and inspire them to do more)

In my day-to-day interactions with brands, I often explain that money can't buy everything. They have to understand that the motivation of influencers is into things which is beyond free stuff. For planning Digital PR strategy with influencers, we should aim to convert our one-time relationship with them into marriage. Everyone loves to get respect and appreciation for the work they do. Today, I thought of listing down every possible key point that I use for planning a perfect influencer marketing strategy. Here are few valuable tips that you should know before planning the same:

1. The rule of a pitching to a digital influencer - the basics of Digital PR

   Do not pitch directly without an intensive research. Rather understand their flow of writing, acknowledge their work on their blog/ Youtube channel comment section and engage with them on Twitter over common points of interests. In a nutshell, "First get to know them better!"

2. Identify common passion points between brand & influencers

   It is important to find, the common passion points between your brand and an influencer before planning any content creation exercise. Bluntly, acquiring influencers for satisfying your "reach" ego won't work in the long run, because you will soon realise that it is not reflecting onto sales or consumer's sentiments.

3. Start with asking, "Why"

   Why would an influencer create content for your brand? Have you ever asked yourself that why does a reader/follower like the content created by an influencer? Why would the target audience share a video? If you have an answer to this "why" then you can effectively plan the "what" and the "how" of marketing with influencers. In most of the cases, I have observed that marketers are unable to effectively answer the "why" and henceforth, get puzzled in the "what" loop of execution.

4. Research and create a list of influencers

   Explore & create a list of influencers who are important for your brand. Having a targeted marketing approach always helps you to save time & bring efficiency to your digital PR plan.

5. Build relationships to reap results in the future

   Always think of a long term strategy. Plan to build on associations, that will help your brand in future. Having a long-term relationship will help you build a trustworthy bond between your brand and the influencer. Moreover, they will be pleased to create content for you, join your events & recommend your brand wherever necessary.

6. Analyse & iterate

   Your strategy should not be marketing for the influencers but to have a strategy of marketing with them. Do your regular analysis on how the content created by the influencers is performing. What is the organic reach of the content produced by the influencer for the brand. Can you invest in an improved setup for influencers for producing fine content? Iterating your plan after doing research on influencer performance is always recommended.

7. Influence the audience of an influencer

   If the agenda of your influencer marketing program is to influence the influencer, then my friend you are thinking in 2012! The aim should be, to influence the audience of the influencers. The virtue of an influencer is in his/her reach, so at the same time we should always focus on the end users.

8. Understanding the ecosystem

   If you want an influencer to create content for your brand then help them with amplification, reach and things required for creating "awesome" content. They will love it and aspire to create more in future for you.

9. The chemistry of affinity

   Understand what an influencer loves the most & wants to have. This question is very subjective and depends from person to person, but the answer is "not always the monetary benefits" provided by the brand. You can share their names in research reports, in changelog of upcoming OTA of phone updates, on the website as key thought leaders, or even promote them to a new set of audience.

10. Planning the correct compensation

    If you want influencers to attend your event, create content for you, publish video reviews or even live tweet, then they should get the compensation for the time spent in some way or the other. Planning the correct compensation method is a very crucial factor in determining the influencer's satisfaction. It can be a great exclusive news or the content getting an appreciation from a follower!

    [Bonus] Approaching an influencer

    I'm assuming that you always approach influencers after doing basic research. The research of what they write, what they like, what kind of events they go to, what kind of content they create for their owned properties, etc. Your approach towards them defines whether your influencer marketing strategy will work or not. Having a mindset of throwing money for paid content may not always work and can lead to a catastrophic PR disaster.

After reading this post do tell me if it helped you in planning your influencer marketing strategy. If you have any queries, feel free to reach me on twitter @honeytech or mail to honey at armdigital.in. Last but not the least, plan a kickass influencer strategy and keep me posted on how it went!

In the past few years, we’ve seen a huge surge in the number of marketing tools and technologies. From social media to smartphones, technology is making a huge impact on the life of customers. This influx of technology-revamped marketing has led to the transformation of “MarTech”, which is a combination of Marketing and Tech that is used to acquire customers. Today, CMOs and Marketing Heads are thinking through the lenses of businesses and customer experiences, while technology is aiding them to empower their own unique perspectives and create an executable strategy. MarTech is enabling personalized marketing, which is something that brands need to learn in order to cope up with the changing trends for customer acquisition. Inbound Marketing is the Best tool for Businesses for Customer Acquisition and Retention.

#1. Advertising: the Top of Mind Recall

Today, advertising also needs unique trends to get itself notified, and the most pervasive component is 'Top of Mind Recall'. We generally market brands or products with every possibility of it lasting longer, but always forget that once the Top Of Mind Recall is created, it's usually less expensive to advertise the product. Advertising and marketing have always obsessed over the youth, but never more so and never more pointlessly. The over 50's now have control over 80% of the wealth in developed nations, have more free time, look set to live far longer, are way healthier and more engaged in brands than before. Yet the world of marketing abandons them to look at the trending money. The trend lines are clear, so what can your business do about it?

#2. Science & Technology: The medium for creating demands

The science behind how you continue the conversation experience is getting smarter day-by-day. Recently, Oracle launched their machine learning technology, which they are calling ‘Adaptive Intelligence Applications’ (AIA). For acquisition, conversion, retention and growth, chief marketing officers (CMOs) want to know how technology can make these things easier to practice and constant hard work is taking place on that vision to make it a reality. Moreover, different markets have different demands. Australia is the most mature market and one of Oracle’s most successful clients in that country is an airline company called Jetstar, which has won many awards for its effective marketing practices. The challenge is that the share of economies that are still trying to do sophisticated marketing is relatively small. A lot can be provided to the customers, and at the end of the day a lot of brands do marketing – some do it well, others not so much. More often than not, sophisticated marketers tend to be those who have tried to understand their customers. We can aid them by providing training and guidance, and help them translate their strategies into actionable outcomes. The biggest challenge is avoiding the trap of thinking that marketing is about giving discount offers to people. There is a lot of simplistic marketing practiced as it’s a price-sensitive economy, and this for of marketing at times is just about making an offer or making a limited price discount. Though that is an important tactic to use in marketing, most of the CMOs are now seeing the value in building a brand. If you have a strong brand, you don’t need to make a discount offer, but at the same time it is not easier as a lot of brands practice the discount strategy to attract customers.

#3. CMOs , Tech & Acquisition

For CMOs, if you don’t adhere to the best practices, there are more dangers than benefits of using technology. To make technology an enabler, we have to follow the rules of effective engagement with the customers and put safety measures into practice as far as customer data is concerned. Digital marketing has become an established practice, and it is important for marketers to understand the science and nuances behind it to make it more effective. The number one priority of the CMO is the customer. A recent study by Gartner confirms this: “25% of CMOs say leading customer experience is the most-increased expectation CEOs have of them over the last year.” Today, the CMO’s decisions are driven by data, as they attempt to understand customer sentiment, buyer decision patterns, and predict future actions. There is no question that the CXO and CMO should work in tandem. CMOs have a wealth of useful information to share with CXO’s looking to optimize the customer experience strategy. As the CXO role evolves, it continues to gain traction. With customer success becoming a critical differentiator in an increasingly crowded marketplace, organizations embrace the CXO as an invaluable player in shaping the overall customer experience.

#4. B2B the best practice to build connections

We live in a world where connections matter. With our current global economy, it’s impossible for a business to thrive in isolation. Developing strategic partnerships is absolutely vital if you want to employ the most effective B2B customer acquisition strategies and reach more people. Partnerships like these are a great way to gain exposure. You’ve probably already seen many different examples of this online. For example, a group of online marketers who offer similar or complementary products/services may decide to collaborate on a project, such as an online seminar. Each individual marketer will offer the seminar to their current customers, which will then broaden the exposure of everyone in the collaboration. You should be actively seeking out like-minded companies to build relationships with. These connections don’t have to be made online; they’re just as effective offline as well. Don’t limit yourself to either/or. Make a point of networking at local and regional events in addition to finding connections online.

#5. Focus On What Works

The B2B customer acquisition strategies have been tested and proven to be effective. Which of these strategies do you think will work best for your company? If you’re looking for a good company to partner with (especially one that can help you with your exposure), we’d love to chat!

The online world is a space which constantly keeps evolving, which is the same case when it comes to web design. The designs which were popular in 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019 will simply not work as well in today’s date – such is the pace at which technology changes. So, web developers have to constantly update the look of their websites, such as their templates, navigation, action buttons, etc. They need to keep on experimenting with these in order to evaluate which design of the website attracts more customers and enhances their experience. With the advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Virtual Reality (VR), web designs are going to get even better. If you are on a lookout to refresh your web design, here are some web design trends you must try in this year. This will help you drive more traffic to your website, and keep your users engaged:

#1. Bolder and beautiful fonts

Many websites are cleaning up their home pages by using bold, eye-catching headings, and keeping the rest of the page minimal and clean. This makes the design of the home page look beautiful, and takes the focus to the content. For example, the men’s clothing retailer Frank and Oak uses big, bold fonts and large photography to keep their homepage extremely eye-catchy, while putting all the emphasis on their content.

#2. Use of bright gradients

Most of the brands are experimenting with brighter colours and duotone gradients all over their homepage. They are no longer sticking to using just single, solid tones and cramming the homepage with information. For example, Impossible Bureau uses very vivid colours and contrasting gradients on their page to make it look striking.

#3. Custom-made graphics and illustrations

More companies are turning to graphic designers and illustrators to create astounding illustrations and graphics for their websites, which resonates with their users and reflects their brand. It is a big break from flat designs and minimalism, which could be seen on the websites a few years back. Illustrations and graphics inject life into a simple, plain website, and helps to build the personality of a brand. For example, Dropbox uses an interface which is extremely easy to understand, and its hand-drawn and light-hearted illustration reflects its friendly personality and puts the user at complete ease while using their product.

#4. Microinteractions

Microinteractions are single, specific moments when a user is interacting with your website. These may be scrolling effects and/or hover-and-click animations. Most of the designers think of it as an important component of a website, which adds delight, creates surprise, and offers something attractive, engaging and exciting to the users.

#5. Cinemagraphs

Cinemagraphs such as high-quality videos or GIFs that run on a smooth, continuous loop, have been widely used to propagate the content to a user in an interactive and visually appealing manner. It breaks the monotony and adds life to an otherwise static page.

#6. Duotones

Many designers are experimenting with visually appealing duotones for their pages. Some are even experimenting with mixing more than two colors. For example, MyUKmailbox, uses duotone very beautifully in its design, to reflect the personality of the brand.

#7. Mixing Vertical and Horizontal Texts

Web designers keep on experimenting with the aesthetics of their web page, and mixing vertical and horizontal texts is one great way to do so. It is a relief for the user from the usual clutter of text and it instantly catches his/her attention. This also provides a fresh dimension to the page.

#8. Modular Design

This is one of the latest innovations in the world of web design. Modular designs are surely a spectacular way to create a clean, accessible website that will keep the users engaged. For example, Script & Seal, an illustration studio site, uses a modular design to make navigation easy for the user and makes the UI clean and very attractive to look at.

#9. Card and Grid UI’s

While there have been many new designs which have been on the rise currently, Card and Grid patterns are something which is going to stay. It was made popular by Pinterest and followed by likes of Facebook, Twitter, etc. It instantly shows the headings of the content which the user can expect on the page, hence enabling him to quickly scan the site in a visually appealing manner. For example, dribble.com, an invite-only sharing platform for designers, is a great example of a functional card UI with a simple grid. Each element is clear and accessible, allowing a user to scan through the content easily.

#10. Innovative Scrolling and Parallax

With innovations being made in web designing, the function of scrolling has changed, and it is being used in more creative capacities to deliver content online. Earlier, designers emphasized on keeping the most important content “above the fold”. But this concept is vanishing now, since the “fold” is now harder to define, with users viewing content on screens of all sizes. Designers have innovated basic functions such as scrolling to deliver content to the user in a more engaging and convenient manner. Infinite scrolling is one such innovation made towards the delivery of content. In this web design, the content loads as the user scroll down the page. This design would prove great for sites which have a large amount of information to disseminate. It is also widely used by social media giants such as Facebook and Twitter, where numerous updates are required to be delivered in the user’s news feed. Also, many more smart features in scrolling are being constantly developed. For example, it works well with video-based content, where the video can auto-pause as the user scrolls down, and resume when he scrolls up. Another way in which scrolling has been innovated is the implementation of parallax. It involves the background moving slower than the foreground, thus creating a beautiful 3D effect. For example, Apple is a brand which makes great use of the scroll feature on their site. Keeping all the important product information static on the left, a series of watches Cascades when you scroll, creating beautiful and seamless transitions on the page.

#11. Geometric Layering

Another innovation made in an effort to make websites look more attractive and exciting to users, the popularity of geometrical layering has only risen. It was first propagated by Google in their Google Material Design and has been used by designers ever since to add life to images that are otherwise plain. For example, buildings, interior designs, people working, etc. The greatest advantage of using geometric layering is that it is easy to work with and integrate with the rest of the design. They can also work with any type of content, putting direct emphasis on it. For example, Bailey and French – a Management Consultancy company – has beautifully incorporated geometrical layering in their design, which makes their sites highly attractive.

Minimalism

It is said, “less is more”, and this couldn’t be truer for website designs. Minimalistic designs are trending with companies nowadays. This design lets go of all the unnecessary elements from the framework of a site, leaving only what is most required. Most of the minimalistic sites use neutral colors, dramatic typography, large and vivid photography and very simple navigational tools and visual balance. Because there is a usage of very few elements in this approach, designers must be careful in choosing what to keep and what to leave. If designed and conceptualized properly, minimalistic design can work wonders for your website. For example, ‘Oh My!’, a Digital Design studio uses a large white background for some high-contrast effect and a very simple navigation to provide a great UX. These are some of the web design trends to look out for in this year. These will surely make your website stand out and keep your users engaged and wanting for more!

The online world has become highly competitive and unpredictable space. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) services has become an indispensable function for marketers to make their online presence felt and more importantly, rank on the first page of the search results. So, the only key to survival in this online world is to constantly follow the SEO trends. Google keeps on updating its search algorithms on a regular basis, and every digital marketer must follow those updates if he wants to stay on the top the search results page. Here are 8 SEO trends every CMO and marketer must know about, to incorporate in their marketing strategy”

1. Marching towards Mobile-only world

The increased usage of mobiles has changed the face of SEO over the past few years. Mobile search has not overtaken desktop search, but it will surely do so in the future. The majority of website traffic comes from mobile instead of a desktop, for many of the companies. In May 2015, Google reported that mobile searches have surpassed desktop on its search engine. Since then, it has taken many steps to give an indication of business that it is a must for them to create a mobile-friendly site. In fact, Google had also announced that it has been conducting experiments to make its index mobile-first, i.e., it would primarily consider a site’s mobile content, rather than its desktop while determining how to rank it in the results page. Google had also introduced Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP’s) in the market, which allows faster loading of web pages on the mobile devices. This allows 4 times faster loading speed of the page with 10 times less data. Hence, if your site receives a heavy volume of traffic from mobile searches, it may be a time you created an AMP version of your web page. Although it is still not considered to be a ranking factor by Google’s algorithm.

2. Voice Search has become more important than ever

Because of an ever increasing usage of mobiles, voice search has become all the more important. With the endeavor to constantly improve it, is becoming one of the fastest growing search options. Its appeal is undeniable since it is hand’s free and futuristic.As technology improves with each update, the error rate is only decreasing. In this front, it would be wise for companies to look beyond Google, since Bing may pose to be a big competitor in this arena since it is heavily fuelling its search through Siri and Alexa.

3. Optimize for user intent

Users now- a-days know what they want, and hence type full-phrase queries in the search engines. In its endeavor to provide better answers to users queries, Google introduced Google RankBrain late in the last year, widening the avenues of algorithmic machine learning. It is an extension of Google’s Hummingbird, which tries to learn the user’s natural language and how they phrase conversational queries. It tries to understand the context of the user’s search and shows up only those results on the top which matches with the user’s context and intent of the search. Hence, when it comes to optimising for natural language, voice search and intelligent voice search (such as Siri or Cortana), the SEO experts need to concentrate more on optimizing their content based on intent rather than keywords.

4. Local Search Optimization

With advancement towards a mobile-only world, the importance of local search optimization has increased even more. In a competition to rank on the first page of the SERP, companies having a local listing find themselves on the top of the SERP. This helps users looking for a local business to easily distinguish them from the other organic results. Having physical address and proximity to a user gives a local business an advantage of attracting local customers to their business. But all is not good as it looks like! Recently, Google reduced the number of local business listings in its SERP to only 3. But it is still a very important way for local businesses to rank at the top of the page and attract more customers. In 2016, there was as much fierce competition for local search results as organic or paid results.

5. More Rich Answers and Snippets

In its endeavor to provide better content to users, Google has come up with rich answers and snippets in its SERP. The users find it relevant since they feature on the top of the results page, and give a rich summary to the user about the content. To achieve these enhanced results, a website can add a code called Structured Data Markup (often referred to as “schema markup”) directly to your site’s HTML markup. This markup helps search engines understand a website’s content better, and to show information which is the most relevant the user. According to a study by Stone Temple Consulting, the volume of rich snippets appearing in search results has nearly doubled from 2014 to 2016. Going by this trend it is only going to rise further in 2017 and in the future. Adding structured data on your website can enhance your chances of having an enhanced SERP listing, your content being featured as a rich answer, or in case of branded searches, having a knowledge panel appear. Also, users prefer to have quick content which is relevant to them. So, in order to stay ahead of your competitors, you must consider implementing schema markup for your website, if you haven't already.

6. Personalization as an SEO strategy

Earlier, everyone used to see the same search results. Nowadays, every search engine shows different search results for every individual. Search engines personalize results on three criteria, i.e., country, location and personal history. With Google enhancing its entity search and context, personalization has become more important than ever before. It means that Google would more often present from websites that are already in our search history, or through search entities, linked from websites already present in our search history. This would mean that brands should focus more on making their brands synonymous with their products in the long run.

7. Engage in intentional link building

Links have always been one of the most important factors for ranking in search. According to a report by Search Engine Land, Google has confirmed it to be one of the top three ranking factors (along with content and RankBrain). Also, several ranking factor studies have confirmed this. A recent study by Stone Temple has indicated that links are more powerful than we thought earlier. However, they emphasized that building links alone would not help to rank low-quality content. Hence, you need to also emphasize on quality of your content, apart from building high-quality links.

8. Focus on enhancing user experience

We know that improving user experience has remained a key ranking factor for many years now. However, you need to concentrate more on the relationship between user experience, click-through rates, and bounce rates. A recent study published by Moz blog shows that there is a direct connection between high rankings and beating out the expected CTR of the other pages in the SERP’s. In other words, if your content stays at the top of the SERP, but doesn;t outperform in other results in terms of clicks, you may not be able to remain in the top position for long. These are the 8 most important SEO trends for 2020 which every CMO and digital marketer must know about, and implement in order to rank at the top of the SERP and outperform their competitors. Know more about the Top 6 SEO Trends that will Dominate 2020.

Marketing blogs are an excellent way to stay out and discover crucial information and identify tried-and-tested ways to spot the various marketing trends around today’s fast-paced industry. So here are the top informative and essential marketing blogs that every CMO should follow:

#1. Marketing Land

Marketing Land is a reliable source of the latest news in the world of online marketing. It reports on the relationship between digital marketing and tech development, and ensures that your content strategy reaches the target consumer. It works with some subject matter experts and guest contributors to provide the latest articles from the marketing world. From updates in content management to new features on social media platforms; Marketing Land’s posts are highly informative and relevant. Search Engine Land is a publication for the same company. It looks specifically into issues regarding SEO, paid search and content marketing.

#2. Content Marketing Institute

Content Marketing Institute offers one of the best pieces of advice regarding content and how it can help your brand grow. One of their primary objectives is to provide qualitative information to educate marketers through research documents, events, eBooks and whitepapers. It provides the information on trends, helpful strategies, storytelling, news updates from major brands and case studies on how companies can construct their content marketing strategies. From latest business trends to best practices, their blogs offers bits and pieces of advice on how to generate effective content marketing and best strategies for the business. It is totally worth it to browse and bookmark this blog.

#3. The Moz Blog

Moz Blog is one of the best digital marketing blogs to read if you want to get updates and news from top industries related to inbound marketing initiatives. Each of their posts provides real value and offers the actionable insights of the businesses. It informs everything you want to know with the right amount of detail to make it comprehensible. Moz blog is packed with useful blogs on SEO strategies and practices. It helps you to understand the mechanics behind the SEO updates. For a beginner, their content is quite digestible. Whether it's a recent algorithm update from the leading social mediums, a statement from Google or a guide for keyword planning, their blog should be referred by the marketers to deepen their knowledge of SEO or how they can integrate the various digital approaches with marketing strategies.

#4. Kiss Metrics

Kiss Metrics specializes in analytics, marketing and testing and its various informative blog posts reflect this specialist knowledge. Their team examines the statistical trends that are making waves and reports it comprehensively. These reports inform people about the brand's online performance. It is useful for conducting research for your articles and selecting useful statistics to use for your campaign proposals. On the blog, you will come across beautifully designed infographics which contain the latest digital marketing statistics, studies and tests. You’ll also find an array of useful digital marketing guides that tackle subjects like email marketing, social media and customer analytics.

#5. Convince & Convert

Convince & Convert produces a variety of resources that include websites, blogs, podcasts, books and eBooks. They are digital marketing advisors and a perfect platform to learn more about digital advertising. Each of the articles is short and simple, despite being insightful and informative. Jay Bear and his team are the advisors of Convert & Convince who have advised various brands with tactics to use social media and content marketing. Their advice helps you to think outside the box, and you can incorporate those ideas to build the digital marketing strategy.

#6. Hubspot

Hubspot is one of the leading inbound marketing softwares in the industry. It was founded by Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah in 2006. It offers many services in one powerful and easy-to-use integrated marketing package. It is an incredible support for creating powerful and compelling content, organizing your online activities, managing your website and then measuring and controlling everything you do on one single platform which makes inbound marketing faster and more efficient. Beyond their product offering, their blogs are the first step towards effective inbound marketing strategies.

#7. Social Media Examiner

Social Media Examiner dispenses advice on all social media platforms like Facebook, Youtube, Google+, Twitter and more. You can get advice from the social media experts on how to generate an effective social media strategy on each of these platforms. Their blog posts and articles include the expert interviews, case studies, podcasts, reviews of the latest research results in the industry and the most recent social media news. This content can help you plan and create your social media strategy and content calendar. Social media has become one of the most influential mediums to reach out to the masses. To keep your social strategy updated, Social Media Examiner helps the business through their advice.

#8. eMarketer:

eMarketer is a marketing news source similar to Marketing Land. It leans toward data-driven content like case studies or market research. If you’re looking for demographic information, such as mobile usage within your target market, eMarketer is a good place to consult. It is a place to research about marketing in the digital world. eMarketer majorly relies on sourcing this information from marketers and business professionals. They generate the information on marketing trends, consumer behaviour and have a huge database of essential data relating to the digital economy.

#9. Socialfresh

The best thing about Socialfresh is that they also publish alternative media pieces such as podcasts that offer various alternate modes for consuming their data. Others include the videos, speeches or presentations at various events. If you’re short on reading multiple articles from various sources, Socialfresh gives you the consume comprehensive content via their offering. The topics which are covered by them focus a lot on the power of social media and how the industry is evolving.

#10. PR Daily News

PR Daily provides public relations professionals, social media specialists and marketing communicators with a daily news feed. It combines the industry related stories and the top stories going on throughout the world. It offers content pieces on content marketing and tech information as well. The variety makes their blog easier and enjoyable to consume without any repetitive content.

When you’re a SMEs or start-up, it is essential that you want to reach to your potential users; you want the people to know about you. The real struggle for SMEs or Startups is how they become the part of any discussion. One of the classic ways to implement any marketing strategy used in such confusion is either to use Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) or Pay-Per-Click (PPC).

There are various questions raised in the mind of any small business during web marketing is "Whether I should be using SEO or PPC to drive traffic to my website?

Often PPC and SEO are approached with separate plans. Though they are dissimilar in their approaches, it is important to learn that they are part of the same domain: search. One is known for its paid clicks and another one for natural clicks. They both are suited for different outcomes and can be complimentary for any business if utilised together.

What is Search Engine Optimisation?

SEO is a strategy to maximise the number of visitors to a particular website by ensuring that the site appears high on the list of results returned by a search engine. It is an organic process of generating the lead through the results on search engine. SEO gives the link to the related websites as per the keywords typed by the users (depending upon the high-quality content of the website). Content marketing in many sights depends upon the SEO keywords to generate customer-centric content. Though SEO and Content Marketing are two different approaches, but they work together. SEO creates the demand for keywords and content

What is Pay-Per-Click?

Pay per Click is the Concept available on many internet marketing platforms like Google, Yahoo, Bing, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, etc. where you market your advertisements on these platforms and pay for every click that your prospective clients (viewers) make on these ads. It is an approach of internet marketing in which the advertisers pay a fee each time one of their ads gets clicked. By this, the business buys the lead to their website rather than generating leads organically. It offers an immediate ROI in comparison to inbound strategy.

Before you jump to the strategy, the marketers need to consider some several factors like the budget of the business, business goals, how quick you want to see the results.

Budget:

When deciding between SEO and PPC, you need to determine that by what size advertising budget your business can support. If the small business doesn't have enough budgets to support the PPC strategy, then it's better to opt for SEO as it generates the organic traffic to your website.

Average Cost per Click:

The term CPC refers to the price users are willing to pay for each click they receive on their ad. It is an internet advertising model which helps to drive traffic to your website in which the advertisers pay to the site when the users click the ad.

When you establish a digital marketing budget, you should also consider what other people in the industry are paying for ads for Search Engine results. Some CPC is not so cheap as they can cost up to as much as 20$-30$. Such prices can make it difficult for the small business to earn revenue at initial stages.

How fast do you need results?

Where PPC has the advantage of quick results, SEO has a benefit of generating traffic organically. PPC can be a good option for the business which has the newly established website and wants the initial boost to drive traffic. But as a result, it doesn't turn out a long-term effect on the customers where SEO compels the potential customer to reach to your website builds long term relations. Therefore, SEO is a much practical approach to implement.

Which marketing strategy is better: SEO or PPC?

The main advantage of SEO is; statistically, it tends to bring you better traffic and the leads who are interested in the content published on your website. In the case of PPC, lots of searchers have trained themselves even to ignore "paid results" completely when browsing on the search engine.

There's plenty of data which suggests that organic visitors to your website are brand loyal, trust your business, and trust your products & services. Ranking highly on Google with the help of SEO for a keyword phrase is a sign that you're credible and that you're a valuable player in your industry. These are the major advantages of SEO. Moreover, it showcases you as expertise in your industry.

Though SEO runs for long-term benefits for any business, it takes time, skills and resource to implement correctly.

Summing-up

In order to achieve the best of results, it is vital for the small business to choose the best model marketing to execute which could bring the digital presence and reach the potential customers. PPC is a jump-start way for any business to build an online presence, and drive traffic to the website. Though a holistic campaign of both SEO and PPC will work the best to boost your small business and bring out online success, SEO would be ideal for stabilising traffic, nurturing leads, and building a long-term relationship with the customers cost-effectively. Plus, SEO efforts will help your PPC results as well.

Social media is the new way of communication. It hasn’t been here for long (maybe just over a decade) but it already is the most widespread method of communication. Social media has become so important that it is one of the biggest contributors to website traffic. The advent of so many social media portals has got people of all races, ages, and religions glued so much so that most people spend at least an hour collectively on these social media portals.

Using this vast networking platform for marketing can amplify your brand awareness exponentially. After all, content marketing strategies on social media brings about a level-playing field for small companies to match their marketing strategies with those of large enterprises and MNCs. Thus, for SMBs with little to no visibility, social media marketing is a great tool to reach out to potential customers and create their brand awareness by posting engaging content.

Challenges SMB’s Face When it Comes to Marketing

SMB’s face many challenges when they try to reach out to potential clients. These challenges can at times be pretty daunting and somewhat confusing. Here is a list of the challenges they face:

• Compared to their competitors, they have lesser brand awareness and visibility among the target audience. This makes it tougher to push through the competition and make their voices heard.
• With a limited budget, the adaptable marketing strategies get limited, hence implying a limited reach.
• The limited budget calls for a creative marketing team that can make things happen inside this constraint. But as a small business, you can’t allot a big team just for marketing.
• In this fast-paced world, where trends rise and fall by the minute, staying above that wave to be heard is a big challenge.

How Social Media Helps?

Social media nowadays is not just a way of communication for people. Now people can get the latest news, buy things directly from social media, connect with companies and build communities with like-minded people. These things make social media more than just a pastime for individuals, and it paves the way for sharing and consuming valuable information with peers. You can reach out to anyone, with less effort and barely any problems.

These developments have paved the way for social media to become an important marketing tool for companies to use. It helps companies connect with the target audience conveniently. It makes it easier for companies to reach out to such people and interact with them, creating a strong social media presence. It can help strengthen brand perception and trust, by providing key information to a wide customer base. This ability to reach out to a large customer base with good content makes social media marketing a lucrative idea. It is easier to implement, doesn’t require a large team to handle the mandate. It is also a money-saving option, costing up to 60% lesser than traditional marketing tools.

Social Media marketing depends heavily on content, in the written, photo or video formats. On basis of this, you can connect with people who might be interested in your company’s products. For a successful social media campaign, you need good content and the help of social media influencers to help spread the word about your company. When people see your content being promoted by someone they follow, they are inclined towards your product as well. The network that you can create on social media to connect with your target audience is ultimately what gives widespread reach to your content and help in building brand awareness.

Another big advantage of social media marketing is that your content is instantly shareable with the click of a button. This makes interested customers a source of spreading brand awareness for you, improving your reach. It also provides a platform for customers to reach out to your company for any grievances they might face. By promptly addressing such concerns, you can improve your brand’s trust. Customers take this as a sign that you are listening to and are aware of their problems, helping with improving brand perception.

Thus as an SMB, using social media strategies can help brands grow quickly and be recognised by potential customers. The two-way interaction allows customers to reach out to the company, building upon brand trust and loyalty in customers. With the help of good content, strangers can be made interested in the products/services, making them visit the website and find out more about your brand. These interested/potential customers can then be engaged with the company, turning them into leads, thus improving the overall sales of the company. It also helps you provide richer customer experiences before and after sales, making people come back to you for repurchase.

You can also collaborate with other people and brands for mutually benefiting campaigns, helping you build relationships for the future.

Conclusion

With the rapid rise of social media, it has become the number one medium for people to connect and share ideas. This increase in people’s interactions online makes social media the perfect tool to reach out to a large number of people efficiently and effectively at the same time. The content can also be targeted, made specifically to interest a certain group of people, who can be potential customers of the brand. Using social media influencers, you can reach out to a large audience, increasing the base of people you reach. Also, the progress and results of social media marketing are instantaneous and trackable, giving you an insight into what strategy works and what doesn’t. This is an important part of media marketing as this is what makes the results tangible.

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Inbound marketing has become a buzzword and an upcoming trend to talk among marketers for building an effective marketing strategy. It is a form of marketing which empowers potential customers by generating the content that resonates with the readers. Inbound marketing uses strategies in a way so that a company is visible to its clients. So instead of them going out and hunting customers, the customers discover them. For organisations looking to up the ante in their sales, inbound marketing can be a great solution. Companies that follow the inbound marketing strategy have been shown to be 4x more efficient in driving revenue and hitting sales goals.

Inbound marketing focuses a lot on nurturing leads. It is a customer-centric approach which attracts people through the integrated use of content marketing, search engine optimisation and social media marketing.

Content Marketing: It is used massively in the industry to engage the larger audience. The digital media has widened the scope of content marketing, and even the range of users has also increased. The audience has become very interactive and wants fresh and accurate information. Content Marketing is not limited to blogging but various other creative areas as well. Videos and images have played a great role in generating traffic, as they are interesting and appealing to the viewers.

Search Engine Optimisation: SEO is a strategy to maximise the number of visitors to a particular website by ensuring that the site appears high on the list of results returned by a search engine. It is an organic process of generating leads through the results on the search engine. SEO gives the link to the related websites as per the keywords typed by the users (depending upon the high-quality content of the site). Though SEO and Content Marketing are two different approaches, they are meant to work together; after all, SEO creates the demand for keywords and content.

Social Media Marketing: It is an important pillar which has taken its fair share of hits, but it remains one of the most effective strategies for generating visibility. Throw your content into syndication and the followers will have more reason to stick around. Social media can generate a steady traffic to your site and build your brand credibility. Lead generation through social media platforms is fast, efficient and a relatively inexpensive way to drive traffic to the website

Inbound takes time, expertise and resources to be implemented correctly. Here are some ideas on how to showcase the value of inbound to your CMO.

Some Ideas to Showcase the Value of Inbound to Your CMO

ROI of Inbound Marketing

Outbound marketing methods such as print advertising and direct mail do make it difficult for any business to calculate the ROI. Inbound gives an easier measure of your marketing performance to single out the efforts that need to be improved in various other business functions which are not performing. The ROI of inbound marketing is a lot higher than that of outbound. It is cost-effective, and the effectiveness and efficiency of the efforts are increased, leading to higher profits.

Content Assets

When explaining inbound to your CMO, the inbound content becomes inbound assets. The major focus of content marketing is to engage the audience by using information and creating content in such a manner that would drive more traffic to the site and help to change the consumer behaviour that could lead to better sales. It continues to drive traffic from social channels and SEO long after it has been published, without any additional investment.

Improves Customer Relations

Inbound marketing strives to provide high-quality content to their potential buyers to gain more insights from them and to be of value to them. It focuses on the long-term relationship between the consumer and the business. The main idea is to improve customer-business relations, and as a result, it improves the brand’s credibility, sales, reach and helps in generating new leads. By simply offering customer-centric content and services to the readers, it will contribute to improving brand credibility. This strategy can develop and improve the brand loyalty of the customers.

Retention Rate And Quality Leads

The people who generate traffic on the website are the actual people who are interested in your content. The retention rate in inbound marketing is more, as compared to outbound marketing as only the concerned ones take the effort of filling up a subscription form.

Inbound v/s Pay-per-click

Pay per Click is the concept available on many internet marketing platforms like Google, Yahoo, Bing, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, etc. where you market your advertisements on these platforms and pay for every click that your prospective clients (viewers) make on these ads. It offers an immediate ROI in comparison to inbound strategy.

But it is equivalent to renting space on someone else’s website, with which you are already competing on the digital platform. As a result, it doesn't lead to a long-term effect on the customers, whereas inbound marketing compels the potential customer to reach your website and build long-term relations. Therefore, Inbound is a more practical approach to implement.

To summarise, instead of outbound marketing methods of purchasing ads, buying email list or hunting down the leads, inbound marketing focuses on creating quality content. By publishing useful and accurate content and optimizing it according to your target persona, the potential customer reaches automatically to the website. So, therefore, the output of that content becomes educational and relevant instead of being interruptive.

Inbound Marketing can be an analysed source which can grow its trend in the future. Many companies still believe that traditional or outbound marketing maintains better leads for the sales. One can use both the marketing techniques creatively to improve the overall chance of landing leads with a higher potential.

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