Search Engine Optimization (SEO) has become one of the primary marketing functions which every marketer needs to perform in this content-driven digital era. In the context of SEO, the only thing constant is change, and the SEO trends keep on changing on a regular basis and try to follow the Best SEO Techniques to Rank #1 in Search Engines. As a marketer, you need to be up-to-date with the latest trends in SEO, and follow them meticulously. But there are a few trends which every marketer needs to follow irrespective of these changes, which every CMO would find relevant. Here are 8 SEO tips which CMOs would find relevant and can ensure that it gets implemented in their SEO strategy:

#1. The concept of ranking does not hold good anymore.

This was the old way of doing SEO by the marketers, where their main aim was to utilise a handful of “golden keywords” that would generate huge traffic to the site. For example, a shoe manufacturing company which makes handmade leather shoes would try to rank for keywords like “hand-made leather shoes”, or “hand-made shoes”. And every month, their SEO team would do an evaluation and see where they ranked for these keywords. If their ranking was up, it meant success for them. Similarly, if their ranking was down, it was time for them to re-think and re-evaluate their SEO strategy. There are plenty of reasons why this doesn’t work anymore. Here are a few of the important ones:

• Google is increasingly customizing search results based on location, device and the user as well. It ranks local results higher than organic ones, according to the location and device of the user.
• Voice search is being widely opted by users now with the introduction of tools like Google Now and Siri. It is a hands-free approach and highly futuristic, making it extremely convenient for users to use. No wonder its popularity is only increasing and is not going to diminish anytime soon. This means that the search terms of the users consists more of “natural language” in a conversational tone. In these situations, focusing on long-tail keywords is more feasible, since they yield faster results due to low levels of competition. It also allows you to target customers with highly customised content that will increase the rate of leads and sales.

#2. SEO requires a long term effort

If your company is incurring losses, and if you are considering to save the situation by increasing sales in a short time through SEO, then you are putting your efforts in the wrong direction. SEO is not a short-term strategy which you can use to boost your sales or website traffic in a small span of time. It is more of a long term investment, in which you have to put in your time and efforts every day in order to reap the reward of your hard-work.

#3. The best links are earned, not built

Earlier, Google used to consider links as an important ranking factor for SEO. That still holds true today, but what has changed is that Google has updated is algorithms so what matters today is the quality of the links rather than their quantity. This means that the best links come from sites where it is not easy to get links like, for example, from some news website or some reputable bloggers. These links are earned by creating good content which these reputable sites consider worthy to be linking to.

#4. SEO and content marketing are inter-related

This is an undeniable fact. Both are like two sides of the same coin and individually cannot be successful without each other. If you want to target long tail keywords, then you need to create great content for it. Traditional SEO is still very important, but its long term strategy is broadly content marketing. Hence, if you do not have a great content marketing strategy in place, your SEO strategy is not in place either.

#5. Social Media plays an important role in SEO

Many business brands today are taking advantage of various social media platforms to promote their content. Platforms such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter are used to create a profile for brands. These platforms play a crucial role in boosting your online presence and promoting the content on your website. This will not only help you reach a wider audience, but also send ranking signals to the search engine bots. Hence, using a social media platform that is relevant to your industry will not only build your online presence, but it’ll also boost your ROI.

#6. Fresh Content is important

Earlier, the quality of content on the web did not matter and businesses used to deliver sub-optimal content to their consumers. But this is not the case anymore. Today, without considering the quality of the content and the keywords used, it is practically impossible for any business to rank at the top of the search engine results page. Search engine algorithms are becoming smarter than ever, and you need to constantly update your content accordingly to the rank at the top of the results page. The quality of content is given prime importance by search engines today, and it is the most crucial factor for top ranking at the search results page.

#7. On-site optimization - a crucial factor

Not many marketers are aware of this, but on-site optimization plays a very crucial role so that the website receives acceptance from both the users and the search engines. In order to optimize your site, the right keywords, website pages’ tags and key phrases need to be considered. These factors are used by search engines such as Google to determine how to rank various websites. According to the 2015 Business Buyer’s Guide to SEO, a majority of business leads come from internet sources, referral traffic, direct advertising and/or online searches. In case of online searches, search engines need to know the subject matter of your website for it to be recognized using various web pages by finding the topics covered and keywords used.

#8. Pay-Per-Click (PPC) has no effect on SEO

Many businesses are inclined to pay-per-click advertising as it is considered to be one of the most crucial factors of an online marketing campaign. However, this strategy has no direct effect on the ranking of websites on search result pages. This is simply because SEO is more concerned with organic listings on the results page rather than the paid listings. Paid advertisements may be a great way to attract more visitors to your site during the launch of your site, but it doesn't help to improve the ranking of your site.

Conclusion

The SEO trends keep on changing constantly, with Google updating its algorithms a few times every year. Hence, a digital marketer needs to keep optimizing his site according to the latest trends in SEO, otherwise the company would face the risk of being pushed down to the very bottom of the search engine results page. So, to implement his SEO efforts, a prudent digital marketer should always be well informed about some of the best practices of SEO, so that his SEO strategy can reap rewards for the company.

When was the last day you didn’t use a mobile app? Probably not a day you want to remember! Web apps have become an inherent part of our lives. Apart from having their presence felt across the whole of business landscape, they have dramatically altered the way we use the web. Extremely engaging, highly interactive and imaginative mobile applications are sure to help you increase your business ROIs. Revenues can swing upwards if you know what to do right and how to do it right with feature rich web applications. Now that we’ve got your interest, it is but obvious that you too would love to embrace responsive web apps to drive sales up north. All you need is a bit of help with the right tools and tricks. Why is UX suddenly so all pervasive and important We’ve all been talking of user-centered design in the recent times. So simply put, we can say UX is important because it takes care of our users’ needs and engages with them directly. Interestingly, the industry experts have some wonderful news and views as to what will and will not work for web app UX.

1. Chatty interfaces – Think Chatbots and voice UIs. According to predictions, interfaces will become more human even if it takes time to reach that level.
2. Machine learning – The coming years will see an upsurge in machine learning in everyday apps. Spotify has shown the way, it’s time for the rest of us to follow suit.
3. Designs that tickle the emotions – Data scientists and researchers are sure that there will be a bias towards humanizing designs, such as adorable mascots and emotive chatbots. They will increase the engagement as well as appeal to a larger audience.
4. Virtual reality – It’s here and it’s all set to become bigger! Gaining momentum each day, it’s popularity is growing and designers are more than happily adapting to it.
5. Experiences that bind - A unified, reliable user experience, whether it’s at the beginning or the end would make all the difference while considering designing the app.
6. Colors – Bold and bright and funky too. These could be the order of the day but it would still be paramount to keep the target audience in mind. They might even like it toned down.
7. Knowing and understanding your location – With the growth of IoT, the canvas has become huger and the opportunities larger. There are chances that websites will become responsive to the environments they are in.
8. The marriage of UX and service design - As the world getting more digital by the day, and more digital products use services like never before, UX and service design will need to merge.
9. Design along with development – Designers will need to collaborate with developers for better outcomes and engaging web app UX. Working in tandem, they will reach their shared goals faster and more effectively.
10. Destination Facebook and Google – With higher standards for minimal UI and faster loading speeds, the designers will need to work in alignment to match the pace.

Now that we’ve talked about what will work for web apps UX, let’s look at what the app shouldn’t be:

#1. Unclear and purposeless

Would you like to use an app which is floundering around and its purpose is not clear at all? Designing such an app will result in a very poor user experience. So, it is of utmost importance to be clear about your target audience. A clear idea about what the app is all about and who it is for will aid in its designing. The aesthetics and the branding will come alive only if the app has a clear purpose.

#2. Overlooking the UX Design Mapping

The app’s UX design needs to be thought through and carefully invested in. This needs to be undertaken much before designing starts. The way the app will be structured as well its flow should be mapped out well.

#3. Text heavy

How long do you think you could go on reading text for? Not too long a span, right? With the average person clocking 8 seconds attention span, it really would be a no-brainer to jam the app with too many words. The app should be the right mix of images along with text. To keep the user engaged, the headings and sub-headings should be formatted well and accurately.

#4. Meant only for one device

The app should be designed keeping multiple devices in mind – from wearable ones to the ones that stay atop the desks. It would be a grave mistake in today’s day and age to design an app keeping just a single device in mind. It would do the app well to be optimized for multiple devices.

#5. Distractingly colored

The app should be using appealing and inviting colors rather than inappropriate ones. It would be overwhelming for the users to navigate through a riot of colors. A maximum usage of two to three colors would be deemed fit and look appealing too. Also, while designing the app, color blind users should also be kept in mind.

#6. Ignoring performance glitches

You’ve designed a wonderfully engaging app but the user is turned off because it takes more than the desired time to load. There is an intrinsic need to follow certain performance standards even if you think your app is a sure shot winner.

#7. Discounting the budget for app development

Would you as a user like to go for an app which does not have features to keep you engaged? Thus, the app which is being designed should keep well in mind the budget constraints. If the design thinking does not take into consideration the monetary restraints, it might lead to feature cutting later which will not bode well with the user.

#8. Difficult to navigate

The web app UX should be intuitive and not labyrinthine or baffling. The navigation should be easy and help the users search for what they are looking for conveniently. Moving back and forth will only irritate the users.

#9. Heavy on features

Excessive features on an app can only be a turn off. The user experience is marred by a perplexed feeling. What the stands for and what it intends to serve should be presented in limited features rather than hordes of them. A closer look at while wireframing could help in eliminating redundant features at an earlier stage itself.

#10. Left untested

Analyze, get feedback, redesign if need be. But do not make the mistake of omitting testing the app in-house. Your app could be beta tested by a sample audience before it makes it big in the larger world. One thing’s loud and clear now, that designers need to think and rethink of quite a few unused solutions to make a mark and carve a niche in the app scenario. How can you add to a plain text message, how about adding a link, how can the app look a little more attractive, these are questions that need to be answered by designers who want to make a difference. To sum it all in a wise manner, we could safely say that a successfully designed and implemented web or a mobile app engages the users and is capable enough to function well on its own. Apart from this, it would be great if the app was visually appealing too.

Companies have been collecting and analyzing customer data for a long time. Yet customer data by itself doesn’t paint the full picture and can lead to inaccurate customer insights. CMO’s can use social media as a source of customer sentiment, but more companies are also working with digital marketing companies to take advantage of social influence. Bing believes that social media influences search results and lists these factors to determine author influence for Twitter The ratio of followers to following retweets, sharing, having good followers, following quality accounts, tweeting about relevant topics, authority and relevance of retweeters all this eventually becomes a part of it. Therefore, monitoring and listening to the social sphere results in direct access to what the consumer has to say about your company or product. You are essentially viewing and listening to a realm of private and public conversations. This enables you to define who your target consumer is and what geographic areas to focus on in your campaigns.

#1. Twitter

Tweets about a web page have become increasingly influential in generating higher Google search rankings. By one estimate, they are among the 10 most important ranking factors. While tweets come and go quickly, consistent placement of brand messaging is easy with applications such as HootSuite and TweetCaster. Sponsored Tweets can be purchased to highlight brand content. Twitter is top-of-mind for social-savvy consumers seeking customer support online. Engaging one-on-one with people in this space is simple, easy to track, and can be done publicly or privately. Referral traffic from Twitter is growing faster than on any other social media platform. Photos and videos can make tweets even more clickable, while Promoted Tweets can reach new audiences.

#2. Facebook

Facebook shares, comments, and likes are among the top social media activities determining how high a Web page gets ranked in Google search results. Organic reach might be limiting, however. Facebook allows for easy posting of links, photos, and videos. Of those who are using social media for customer support, three-quarters say they do so via a company’s Facebook page. That spells opportunity for marketers. Facebook remains a traffic leader thanks to an algorithm that rewards engaging content with better news feed placement.

#3. LinkedIn

The platform isn’t among Google’s top influencers in social media, but personal and company profiles contain plenty of text that’s easily searchable and, anecdotally, appears high in search rankings. Many free opportunities exist, including business pages and LinkedIn Influencer posts. The network opened its publishing platform to members. Sponsored Updates are paid and provide added reach. Nearly half of people who use social media for customer service say they do so with a LinkedIn Company Page, while more than 40% do so with LinkedIn Groups. LinkedIn certainly generates referrals, but it’s a second-tier source at this time relative to other social media platforms.

#4. YouTube

Google-owned YouTube features plenty of text, tags, and other searchable content. With 1 billion-plus users, YouTube offers a vast audience. At the same time, its sheer size can limit the ability to find desired material. Channels unite people around targeted content, and subscriptions heighten viewership. At the same time, gaining subscribers takes time, and videos paired with pre-roll ads can get lost in the shuffle. YouTube and other video sites enjoy users’ ready attention when it comes to finding customer support on social media. Easy-to-use tools allow marketers to respond to user comments and ratings. YouTube is an important source of traffic, but its share has dipped.

#5. Google Plus

In general, links with more +1s appear higher in Google search results than similar engagement (e.g. likes, retweets) on other platforms. It’s at the top of the heap to date. Google+ not only favours higher search placement for branded Web pages, but also the authors of those pages. That means higher overall exposure and a rich platform for sharing multimedia. Google+ enables targeted messaging to interest groups through Circles, as well as the ability to communicate broadly to search engine users. Still, research doesn’t indicate consumers use the platform for customer service. While Google+ generates less referral traffic, its market share is growing among social media platforms.

#6. Pinterest

Pinterest activity associated with a Web page is among the top 10 factors that generally result in a higher Google search ranking, according to a recent survey. This platform puts photos and animated GIFs front and center, allowing content marketers to be creative and repackage branding. Its Interests tool helps users sort through heaps of visual information. While brands and consumers can leave public comments and re-pin visual content, additional personalized interaction, such as private messaging, is non-existent. That limits its utility as a customer service platform. Pinterest is the rising star of social referral traffic because each photo links back to a source Web page. Its share of referral traffic rose 89% year-over-year.

#7. SlideShare

While content uploaded to SlideShare included tags, titles, and other details, informal research indicates links such as those inside PDFs within a presentation are better for SEO than others. Slide presentations are easily embedded in a Web page. Messaging is presented in a linear format, allowing brands to build a case in a controlled environment with relevant information. While slides can include links and be shared easily, seamless interaction between brands and consumers isn’t SlideShare’s strong suit. Consider a well-positioned slide with a phone number or email address. SlideShare contributes referral traffic to Web pages, but the process is clunky. For success, embed SlideShare presentations on a company Web page, and then include that link in an e-newsletter.

#8. Instagram

This platform shines more on mobile than on desktop, so its SEO value is limited. However, it’s feasible that this could change: Its owner is Facebook, whose activity factors into searches. More than 70% of the world’s largest brands are using the platform. It is easy to use, makes registration simple, features a clean interface, and is highly visual- creating plentiful opportunities. In just a few short months, Instagram introduced video, advertising, and private messaging. That should allow for more engaging interactions and easier one-to-one contact with individual consumers. Short of sharing a photo or infographic depicting a Web address, Instagram doesn’t create referral traffic. Users can’t click on a link and be redirected to a brand page. Few points to be kept in mind are as follows:

• Purchase behavior
• Market trends
• Influencers
• What is being said about your brand
• What is being said about your competition
• Language used to describe your brand

As time passes on, the social media proves to be a vital counterpart for any business. The results are that stronger information that helps in triggering more efficient business actions while properly segmenting and focusing on your company’s ideal client/customer base. A company that wants to be at the forefront of their industry should concern themselves with social media and proper data management. In doing so, they will be able to stay ahead of their competitors and establish their brand as a market leader. More than just buzz words or a passing trend, big data and social media are highly relevant areas of focus for any top CMO. Developing and integrating a tool known as “GE Grid IQ Insight,” General Electric is another large company that has been able to integrate big data and social media. This tool mines social media for any mentions of outages. This results in early notification, and since many posts are geo tagged, it gives GE early information about problems. As a result, they will be able to respond to a crisis quicker, and obtain up to date information about power outages and customer problems.

Marketing teams globally are spending more than $135 billion on digital marketing tools as the world is moving towards being more mobile and technology-dependent. However, spending your marketing dollars doesn’t quite ensure that you succeed in your campaigns. The law of Economics states that every business must try and work on an optimum scale – there might not be profits, but there shouldn’t be losses either. When it comes to the digital marketing of brands, SMBs (Small and Medium-sized Businesses) have two options – having an in-house team (DIY style) and outsourcing to an external marketing agency. Outsourcing digital marketing cuts down the costs to a large extent, and some even suggest that the total cost of outsourcing would be roughly equivalent (if not less than) to having one digital marketing recruit in your team. Digital marketing today is not about a single road of action – it varies considerably depending upon market demands, consumer preference and changing trends. There are many good reasons to believe that a single recruit will not be adept in all the aspects of the job, which – again – is being continually updated. Apart from these, there are several other reasons why outsourcing work to digital marketing agency can be better than having an in-house team.

#1. High Cost

Hiring a full-time digital marketer for your in-house team can be quite expensive. Mid-career professionals demand salaries that can be quite overwhelming. Here’s what you are expected to pay on an average:

• Digital Marketing Manager: $73,000
• Web Designers: $47,000
• Social Media Managers: $49,000
• SEO Marketers: $60,000
• Content Writers: $55,000
• Graphic Designers: $53,000

By combining all of the above (which is necessary for any targeted digital marketing campaign), businesses would be spending $337,000 every year in salaries – and this amount is excluding the cost of training, infrastructure, health care benefits, sick leaves and paid vacations!

#2. Reduced flexibility

An outsourcing agency offers more than just marketing skills, while the job responsibilities of an in-house executive are clearly defined. An expert web designer will not be a skilled content writer or a social marketer and vice versa. However, outsourcing will give you access to the best designers, writers, SEO professionals and social media marketing professionals – all in the same place, but in a single paycheck. Further, finding someone talented enough and ready for the industry takes a lot of time, and seldom do businesses get a dependable recruit.

#3. Cutting yourself from the latest technology

An in-house executive depends on your company’s marketing budgets to organize a marketing campaign. Consequently, his/her expertise and freedom in choosing the best technology platforms and software tools are greatly limited. Furthermore, you cannot choose to buy all the software technology that’s available, as it would be unproductive. Here are the top marketing tools that outsourcing agencies provide:

• Bright Local costing $64.99 / month
• HootSuite costing $99 / month
• Raven Tools costing $249 / month
• Manage Filter costing $49 / month / account
• AWeber costing $50 / month
• Sprout Social costing $500 / month
• Release Wire costing $70 / release

Outsourcing will let you use all these platforms without any unnecessary monthly spending.

#4. Unpredictable efficiency

There are two ways in-house marketing recruitment is taken care of. Either company hire new professionals (who cost a lot depending upon their experience in the industry) or assign new roles to exist employees (after a brief training of their new responsibilities). In both cases, there is a strong likelihood of burnout which in turn reduces productivity in the longer run. For smaller companies that don’t regularly come up with extensive marketing campaigns, having an in-house team will be tantamount to paying employees for simply sitting idle!

#5. Training costs

Digital marketing channels and tools are continually being updated, and new platforms are being created to make digital marketing more diverse and intrusive. If you are working with an in-house team, you would also have to regularly invest in training your guys on the latest technologies so that they don’t lose to the market competition. On the other hand, outsourcing provides you with the option of experienced and qualified professionals ready to start the work. Also, 82% of global marketers understand that digital marketing is better learnt on-the-job and rarely from training.

#6. Difficult to scale up

The only way to scale up marketing operations when you are working with an in-house team is to hire more people. This again lays an extra burden of implementing recruitment processes, extended infrastructure and training. This is a stark contrast to reputed digital marketing agencies, who have an unlimited arsenal of workers ready to take up projects of any magnitude. Globally, 60% of businesses admit that they have an ineffective in-house marketing team.

#7. Following the learning curve

Growing by the learning curve is a good thing, but not so much when it comes to the tough nature of market competition. In such a scenario when your marketing team is learning from experiences, competing brands would already be ahead, helped by the best third-party digital marketing team. 79% of B2B marketers also face a skill gap when recruiting in-house professionals.

#8. Losing out on the outsider’s perspective

An outsider’s perspective to your marketing strategy is important, especially when brands are investing in unique campaigns. It has been seen that employees find it hard to express new ideas or bring up their personal concerns against a campaign in the fear of losing their jobs or getting humiliated. However, two heads is definitely better than one when it comes to idea generation. Digital marketing agencies will always share their perspective and business marketers might even find it more credible to listen to the experts.

#9. Not ready for challenges

The marketing world today throws regular challenges to any marketer. In-house teams might not be capable enough for challenges they have encountered for the first time. However, third-party service providers come with huge industry experience and are ready for any situation.

#10. Monotony

Finally, the average digital marketing responsibility for any business revolves around repetitive tasks, such as social media updates, social engagement, tweets, sharing and similar things. Rather than setting up a cumbersome in-house infrastructure to deal with this, these are better allocated to a third-party service.

How do you know what companies are working on in a particular domain? How do you find out what brand makes the product you want? Do you go out in the market and look for the producers and suppliers before bargaining for the price? I don’t think so. When you have a facility called ‘smartphone’, I don’t believe anyone would like getting out in the heat and seeking these things out. Nowadays, you can make it without having a proper office but cannot possibly do it without having an online presence. It’s okay not to promote your business digitally if you want to work with a limited set of customers and don’t want to succeed and have a greater reach. But, if you want to be amongst the top and build an authority, then it is imperative for you to have a presence online. According to stats, about 90% of marketers have already moved from traditional to digital marketing strategies and are likely to invest more on the latter. To learn more stats about digital marketing, you can read. With so much emphasis on a digital platform where everyone is trying to identify a TG and build authority, it is difficult for SMBs to stand-out and be seen because of their limited resources. Therefore, in the pursuit of garnering a greater audience than massive MNCs, SMBs are continuously trying to maximize their efforts and efficiently utilise their resources. But how can an SMB possibly match the resources of an MNC and achieve what they want to? This is where technology and all the tips and tricks step in and level the game. There are enough tools and softwares available in the market to ease up the complex tasks and automate the long and tiring ones for the marketers. Now the question is that every marketer has access to these tools and can use them if they wish, so what makes the difference? Everyone is trying to get engaging content and hook their readers, so how can one become the go-to choice? Here are a few tactics for you to do it right:

#1. Be multiple-platform friendly

Everyone today is on the go and are walking the talk, thereby also changing their buying habits. Portable devices, especially mobile phones have brought a drastic change in the system and is ever evolving since then. Everyone is now able to shop while on the go and cut down the task of going out and buying stuff. Therefore, it is important to be accomodating of all platforms and have a mobile-friendly site which can enable users to ease out their task. It is seen that companies who neglect the need of being mobile-friendly are losing a sizeable amount of business and leads, and will soon be surpassed by competitors who are active on multiple platforms and provide their users with a hassle-free shopping experience.

#2. Do what customers want

When we tell you to be mobile-friendly, it didn’t specifically mean that you have to be active on mobile phones. There are other portable devices like phablets and tablets – among others – as well which a company must target. A user can choose to surf the internet and look for information from any device, and if your site/business is not that platform-friendly, then it creates a negative impact on the mind of the users and harms the monetary and imagery aspects of the company. A business that can run across multiple devices is more likely to get readability and business inflow as compared to others. To be the maestro and have authority, a brand must have cross-platform presence and be available for its users wherever they want them.

#3. Social media efficiency

Being an SMB, you can get the maximum out of the social media platforms. Though new-age technologies have made the competition a lot stiffer, it has also made reaching to our audience and gathering user information an easy task for marketers. With so many tips and tricks, any professional can get the information about their TG easily and can amend their marketing campaigns and strategies accordingly. Not only this, but if done right then social media marketing strategies can help any brand to build greater authority and multi-fold their field leads in a short span of time. It is said that ‘that which is seen is sold’, and social media is all about making your brand visible and increasing worldliness about your company.

#4. Utilise the consumer data

What matters the most is to give information to users the way they want it. To provide the information which impacts and to hit the right node, it is important to gather and analyse data collected from consumers. There are marketing tools available that helps companies to automate the process and ease the task for professionals. This data includes everything; from shopping habits to favourite brands to nearest shopping location from their homes, etc.

#5. Augment your customer's journey

With all this information in hand and users providing their personal information, the least we can do is not spam them with unnecessary ads. We can contemplate the kind of ads they want to see and reduce the number of irrelevant ads in order to become more credible in the eyes of the users. With many tech and relevant tools present in the market, it is advisable for companies to invest in such data analysis tools that can help them to get this relevant data and design customizable ads for their users. Using all these tactics, you can ensure a sizable increase in the amount of profit in terms of leads and visibility of your brand, and its potential for higher success.

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 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!