Data has always been at the core of good SEO, and for search engine optimization, trackability is key. Though many SEOs measure this data and track their efforts, many others tend to get overwhelmed while some others mostly don’t measure at all and make do with best practices to get through the day.

The focus here should be on what we want to track and why we should track it. This is where it gets confusing.

Knowledge & Information

Marketers often confuse information with knowledge. The more information they collect, the more knowledge they uncover. Though this is true to an extent, a 2017 report from CMO Council paints a different picture. A good amount of marketers, according to the report, collect great amounts of information but not all of them find the knowledge they seek.

Information is the raw data they are collecting. Knowledge is something derived from the data after thorough analysis that gives insights on about what’s happening on and around a specific SEO account(s). Information on its own isn’t valuable. It’s what the information holds that’s off value. The point is that utilizing a lot of resources to collect information for SEO benefits isn’t what a marketer should be focusing on. Collecting the right data to unearth valuable knowledge is the key.

The Wiser Way

Every SEO campaign comes with its own share of challenges. For companies relying on a reputed SEO consultant, there aren’t a lot to be concerned about. But for those in-house marketers who try to make sense of a plethora of data to boost the success rate of a campaign, the focus should be on something else.

To improve a campaign’s effectiveness, the marketer should have a clear goal. This goal dictates what they should track, why they should track it, and how they should track it. This way they would be able to figure out how to extract actionable insights (knowledge) that matter from all that data. There’s still a chance for them to go off-course and dive head-first into information overload.

But there are ways to keep yourself in check; search engine marketing hacks from a number of experts in the industry.

• Collect and analyze data that are on a need-to-know basis i.e. only the most relevant data should matter.
• Make sure the data collected and about to be analyzed are high quality. The quantity doesn’t matter. You are not doing big data analysis here.
• Focus only on the task at hand, be it analysis, technical optimization, off-page SEO etc.

Conclusion

Marketers, back in the day, never had the means to extract such insights from the data. Data wasn’t as important then as it is now. Many of them found the data overwhelming, and found it easier to just stick to the best SEO practices to get results. Now things are more efficient, but demands a different approach to SEO. The data-driven approach can give results, if the marketer doesn’t let himself get overwhelmed by the data and focus on just what’s important.

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Google Trends can make search engine optimization interesting as well as efficient. However, the catch is that you’d need to understand Google Trends from the inside out to leverage it effectively.

Here are 5 effective ways to leverage the tool for better SEO results.

1. Explore topics first before narrowing it down

A while back, you could just enter the parameters you have in mind on Google Trends. Now the dashboard is much simpler and can give a greater overview of the topic at hand. The new dashboard prompts you to ‘Explore More’ before narrowing it down.

To do this, you can enter a big time keyword that’s associated with your topic first. From there you can narrow it down using the various filters including ‘Worldwide’, time selection, category, and search type.

2. Always add context

The results you get from Google Trends is relative i.e. today’s results can’t be compared to the overall popularity of the trends but with the former heights of the keywords you entered into the tool.

For instance, your keyword’s popularity might have gone down in the past 6 months which would appear in the results. But if you change the filters to past 2 years, the results could be completely different. So essentially, the context matters when using Google Trends. Use filters, and the ‘+Compare’ tool to add new keywords and subsequently add context.

3. Liberally use advanced, specific search options

Google Trend users generally don’t use most search options available in the tool. These options can actually provide them with advanced insights. The options include:

• Web Search
• Image Search
• News Search
• Google Shopping
• YouTube Search

Each option yields different results based on the various segments of the user’s potential target market.

It only gets better as the tool will then offer even more options to sort popular queries. The results and insights from advanced search options in Google Trends can inspire search engine optimizers to come up with new content that embraces new trends.

4. Use long-tail keywords

It’s not easy to rank high in search engine result pages for a particular keyword, even if you seek the help of an expert SEO services company. Getting good results organically takes time. However, if you are using long-tail key phrases, getting to the top of Google SERPs would be comparatively faster.

If you are planning to write content for an upcoming event, you can use Google Trends to learn what’s trending – related questions that people Googled on the subject, the attendees of the event or information regarding the event host etc. Use advanced search options to identify associated queries. Cross-reference the queries you have to piece together a context. The resulting insight would help you understand what piques people’s interests regarding that event.

5. Optimize your videos with data from Google Trends

To get a deeper understanding of what people expect to see and learn from your videos, you can enter your search term in the tool and select ‘YouTube Search’ option instead of the default ‘Web Search’. You can then sort the queries as required, use filters, and cross-reference them to identify what people expect to find and how they search.

This knowledge can help you tailor and optimize your videos accordingly engaging users better, and driving more traffic.

Conclusion

Google Trends has been around for a while, and has had many changes over the years. But it still serves as one of the best free tools out there for a search engine optimizer who is willing to look beyond a basic search. The insights may not always be obvious. But stick with your queries long enough, and you will start to make sense of it all. The insights can then prepare you to do SEO better.

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Many studies suggest that only close 30% internet visitors actually check out a display ad. For an online business, monetizing traffic by converting them into leads is vital. These leads can then be provided with promotional messages or mails for a product or service.

For all this, you begin by directing traffic to your website. Pre-planned content marketing can help with that. And effective content marketing requires the marketer to post blogs, send emails, and leverage social media marketing tactics. Good search engine optimization makes a website more visible to people looking for information in search engines, thus driving traffic.

Conversion comes after attracting the traffic. Let’s delve deeper into that by exploring 5 effective ways to convert traffic into leads.

1. Appealing Landing Pages

Landing pages in a website are literally where a visitor lands after clicking a link that directs them to the website. There could be other pages in the website that provides information relevant to a visitor. But landing pages, on the other hand, are seen as one of the most effective ways to convert visitors into leads.

Building many landing pages inside a main content website for the most popular keywords can in turn increase the chances of visitors getting directed to them via search engines, direct traffic, or referral.  The key thing to note here is the fact that a landing page may not be appealing to all types of users. Analyzing the performance of landing pages can give the marketer a better idea on which landing pages attract which type of visitor.

2. Popup Forms

You may have already seen popups just appear out of nowhere while browsing through a website. Truth is, these popups that you may just close on a whim are actually another effective way to convert traffic into leads. The key is in the effectiveness of the offer that’s shown on the popup. If it’s relevant to the visitor, and if the offer is attractive, the visitor can likely be converted into a lead.

3. Notification Bars

These are screen-wide banners that you may see on top of a website page. Internet users tend to look at notification bars occasionally because that’s where warnings from the browser may appear like when it blocks popups or when a plugin is missing.

The bars can be configured to be displayed on top even when the visitor is scrolling down the website. Because they can catch some attention easily, it’s a wise idea to include email forms in the notification bar or some exciting offer that redirects visitors who click on it, to a different landing page for conversion.

4. Opt-in Forms in Sidebars

Opt-in forms should be present in various sections of a website, particularly in sidebars of a blog. This is because when people find the content to be uninteresting, they may take a look at the sidebar. Again, if the offer is good, they may opt-in converting themselves into leads.

The area below the blogs are also a suitable place to include opt-in forms as this would be the first thing visitors would notice once they are done reading an interesting blog.

5. Redirecting First-time Visitors

It’s much effective to redirect a first-time visitor of a business’ blog to one of their landing pages. The blog would attract them, and on clicking the link, they’d be redirected to a website with the display of an opt-in offer that promises something of relevance or value to them in return for opting in.

Plugins can be used for this, configuring them to redirect only the first-time users and not returning ones. However, this option is only useful for generating leads in a short time period. If not done right, this can affect user experience.

For instance, a returning visitor might be using a different device to access the website. The visitor will be treated as a new visitor by the plugin, and subsequently redirected. The plugins may not work when certain caching mechanisms are active. And if the caching mechanisms are turned off, the website may slow down. So it’s better to use this tactic in short bursts to generate leads quickly.

Conclusion

For the traffic part, businesses can either invest in their in-house marketing team or hire an integrated digital marketing solutions expert to do the job. For the conversion part, the business still needs to have an adept sales and marketing team, or rather ‘smarketing’ team.

These tips can up the chances of converting visitors into leads. The chances of failure depends on how well the marketing strategies are executed. Nevertheless, with proper analytics, the business can increase traffic and improve their lead conversion rates considerably.

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Most SEO companies offer services that can be complemented with sufficient social media marketing for optimal results. So clearly, social media somewhat has a key role when it comes to search engine optimization.

So how does it impact SEO efforts?

For starters, it’s not a ranking factor. It doesn’t help SEO in a lot of ways like people think. But there is a connection.

Social media doesn’t influence rankings

Search engine optimization is all about Google now. Websites compete to rise up in Google rankings, but with no idea of how their algorithm actually works. They work with the information and guidelines they get from Google itself. Google also stated that social media is not a direct ranking factor. But there have been cases that proved that it influences rankings to some extent.

So was Google lying?

Not exactly.

Search Engine Land’s Danny Sullivan posted an article which stated that Google confirmed that the links shared on popular social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter are used as ranking signals. This was later confirmed by Matt Cutts, the former head of Google’s webspam team.

However, last year Gary Illyes, a Google Webmaster Trends Analyst, again was asked the same question – does Google take social media into account for SEO. The answer was a no.

But with other studies proving that there’s a correlation between the two, the best approach is to keep creating good content that will be accepted in social media channels, and linked by viewers who like it. These links, in turn, boost rankings.

Have you ever noticed that high ranked websites have higher numbers of social signals?

Exploring the ‘correlation’

Though it doesn’t directly influence ranking, here are a few ways how it complements your SEO efforts.

• Link building: Social media is where people go for peer reviews. So if someone likes something and shares it, other people would check it out as well. The more shares you get for your content, the more people will like it subsequently giving you links in the process. With good content creation and social media promotion, your website may shot up the rankings for competitive keywords.
• Building an audience: With social media, you can let the world know that you have a unique product or solution that can help people or businesses for that matter. Social media can be leveraged to establish a solid web presence that will consequently impact click-through rates (CTR) when people click on content from your website that impressed them in social media channels. CTR in turn influences rankings.
• Promotion: Social media isn’t all about Facebook and Twitter. YouTube is the second most searched search engine. For businesses, YouTube can turn tides.

Many researches indicate that over 40% of YouTube users want to see more video content from marketers.

According to HubSpot’s reports, 48% of marketers plan to add YouTube to their content strategy next year.

Though the search queries on YouTube don’t have high commercial intent, the platform can still influence SEO performance if you can create good videos to promote your brand or your content. The videos may also rank organically in search engine result pages in addition to increasing the likelihood of getting more links.

Conclusion

These are but a few ways to leverage social media to complement your SEO efforts. The point is that social media does indeed impact SEO performance albeit indirectly. The key is in leveraging it. But it requires you to invest on both social media and SEO, and then utilize them both with sound strategies that align to your business goals. You may also hire a reputed SEO consultant to handle it for you, along with the technicalities.

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Every marketing aspect of a business including search engine marketing should be aligned to the business goal. This means SEO strategies should be different as they are key to effective search engine marketing. This is why businesses should develop their own strategies.

But make sure your SEO strategy takes the following into account.

A mind map for the whole project

Essentially a diagram that can help you develop a strategy from scratch, a mind map branches out to general and specific categories from the center. Ideas can be added to each category. The mind map doesn’t serve as a visualization of your final strategy, but is more like a catalyst to your thoughts, aiding you to develop a strategy. In short, it gives you a picture so you can come up with better ideas for your final strategy.

A document representing the strategy you came up with

With a mind map, you will have ideas for a strategy that can work for your business. This strategy should be represented in detail in a document i.e. this document should state:

• Goals
• Tasks attached to the goals
• Task priorities
• Subtasks
• Expected results

You can add more details to the document. The objective is to use the document to help your team or your client (if you are an SEO consultant yourself) to understand the strategy easily. So the format should be simple. Whoever goes through the document should be able to make changes if necessary without hassle, and should also understand the order the tasks would be executed, to whom each task is assigned to, and the present status of the tasks.

Knowledge on the company

To develop an effective SEO strategy, you should have an understanding of the business or the company that’s going to use the strategy. This will help you identify the strengths and vulnerabilities of the company, so you can tweak the strategy to fit that profile. It can also give you an idea on the tactics that will be more effective than the rest, and the challenges that are in the way.

Some factors you can study include:

• The business’ selling proposition
• The company’s vision
• Things associated with the company that might impact your SEO strategy negatively

Knowledge on the audience

Generally when an SEO strategy is being developed, there will be thorough research on keywords that would be effective. The audience and their behavior are just as if not more important than keywords. But learning more on the audience requires you to invest more time.

Here are a few things you can include in your study.

• How the audience responds to marketing, upselling etc.
• How much they know about the products or services your business or your client’s business is offering.
• Are the audience other businesses (B2B) or consumers (B2C)?
• How your services can benefit them or solve the problems they have?

Goals with an expected impact on the company

A better approach is to develop an SEO strategy that can have a specific impact on the company and how it functions rather than having it achieve a financial goal. Metrics should be chosen accordingly, and they can be anything from links to organic search traffic.

Though many may disagree, it’s not a bad idea to focus on task-oriented goals with time limits rather than focusing on KPI goals. SEO technically doesn’t directly impact KPIs. And that’s KPI should be a second priority.

Setting task-oriented goals, putting an effort to live up to those goals, measuring and analyzing the impact, and then tweaking the strategy accordingly is a better approach in the long run. An SEO strategy that can somehow manipulate KPIs to provide favorable outcomes may not work for long. And it puts more pressure on the SEO team as well. After all, search engine optimization is a slow process that doesn’t provide immediate results. So thinking long-term is never bad.

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There are many ways to boost SEO but there are things that should be taken into account. Here are a few tips that can help you in your SEO journey.

Content that adds value

Content is king when it comes to SEO. Google emphasized it with the Panda update, rewarding high quality content or relevant content that actually adds value. Google wants the searchers to find relevant content that is useful for them, and have a good experience finding them. So for a search engine marketer, knowing the audience is key.

This way, the marketer can make sure to provide content that are useful to that audience, get the search engines to notice it, and subsequently raise their rank in search engine result pages.

Here are a few tips to add value to content.

• Research and identify the most popular topics relevant to your business and your audience
• Find questions that the audience seek answers for pertaining to the topics you selected
• Prepare a high quality content with infographics, and publish them at the right time

Website that gives impressive browsing experience

User experience is a critical factor for search engine optimization, and it starts not from the moment users visit a website but from the moment they search for the website.

So it’s important to make sure that the website gives a great experience to visitors. To do that,

• Fix broken links
• Test navigation to make sure the users can browse through pages with ease
• Make the interface and the content appealing to keep them engaged
• Test page loading speeds
• Make sure the website is responsive, and get started with AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages)

Extensive research

One of the biggest mistakes a search engine marketer can make is to think like a search engine to understand how the search engine ranks websites. At present, they should think like readers to identify what the reader wants or expects from a website, and then provide it.

It’s wise to monitor keywords, user engagement, and website statistics to figure out what users expect from your website. This research should be extensive and requires significant time investment, because if you don’t know your users, you will never be able to give them what they need. The research can even expand to online communities where users discuss issues, and seek solutions.

Visual content optimization

Visual content adds to the website’s overall appeal, and affects the website’s loading speed. It also supplements the textual content in the website, and plays a role in keeping users interested enough to completely go through the content.

Such content including infographics and videos should be optimized for search engines. This optimization can include SEO-friendly titles, alt text, metadata, file size etc. The content should be unique and shareable, and should load as fast as possible even if it’s image/video heavy.

Up-to-date online footprint

Though your website is critical to your online presence, it’s not the only factor. The more online presence the website has, the more value it will get from search engines. This is why it’s important to make sure that your online footprint is up-to-date across various platforms including the popular ones like Facebook, Google+, Twitter etc.

Building online presence involves sharing valuable content to various platforms, and then promoting them to attract readers. The end goal is to ensure that the details you share should be accurate, and make it easier for users to find more about your business. You can either monitor the online presence yourself or hire a SEO consultant or an online reputation manager to do it for you.

Conclusion

SEO is a long process that wouldn’t get you results overnight. As for 2017, there is still time to start fixing your SEO and keep publishing good content so your website can have a great start next year with a higher rank in search engine results.

The post Quick Tips to Improve Your Search Engine Rankings in 2017 appeared first on Software Development Company Dubai UAE - Verbat Technologies.

As a beginner, you can leverage what you already have to make your business known. Here are 6 ways you can do just that.

Social Networking

One of the best marketing tools available for any businessman with big dreams. Social networks like Facebook and LinkedIn, if used wisely, can accelerate the growth of your business while garnering loyal followers. Start by creating accounts in popular social media platforms, and then building a profile with information about your company, links to your company blogs and website etc.

Do not rush it and start promoting your business right away. Establish yourself in the online community by posting relevant news articles, and make your presence known in tech forums. Though this approach takes a good amount of patience and time, you will end up with many followers. Then you can promote your business in a way that your followers would become your customers and spread the news.

Search Engine Optimization

Anyone who wishes to start a business online would be familiar of the term SEO. Search engine optimization is what you do to get your website and business noticed by search engines, and have your website ranked high in search engine result pages (SERP).

SEO is not that complicated. You can find a number of articles that explain the general concept, and learn helpful tips to improve your ranking in Google, the most widely used search engine in the world.

Once you understand the concept, you can begin by using tools like Google Analytics to identify the terms people use to search for the services your business offers. Seed those words or ‘keywords’ on the content and landing pages in your website to catch the attention of search engine crawlers, and boost your relevance in searches. Earning backlinks from other reputed websites can give your website a significant SEO boost.

Backlinks

As the name suggests, backlinks are basically links that take users back to your website from another website. Google values backlinks a lot. A couple of high-profile backlinks can give you a great boost in search engine rankings. Earning backlinks won’t be easy. You will need to get in touch with other businesses similar to yours, do favors, and earn backlinks from them.

You can post popular articles related to your products/services from reputed websites, and request backlinks in return. Do not expect results overnight but when you start getting backlinks, you will notice the impact on your website’s rankings.

Email Newsletters

Email newsletter is how you get your message to people who would be interested in the services you offer. Email newsletters are mostly targeted to a specific audience – your subscribers. There are plenty of email newsletter platforms available to manage your contacts, and schedule newsletters to be sent to them. Most platforms won’t cost you more than $30 a month.

Email newsletters can also be used to give promotional offers to subscribers encouraging them to try out your services instead of simply advertising them.

Articles

Post relevant articles. Get people to read them. Sit back and watch your business’ increasing popularity. Sounds easy, right?

Not so in practice.

Well written, informative, and interesting articles are not that easy to write. But they do give exponential results. Articles can increase your followers, get them to visit your website via backlinks and increase web traffic, and can enhance your business presence in more ways than you think. Relevant, good quality articles also positively influence your SEO.

A single article can continuously drive traffic to your website. One impressive article is better than having ten run-of-the-mill articles that people don’t want to spend time reading. You can post articles on your websites and on free article-submission platforms to increase followers. Make sure to promote your best articles through social media platforms.

Forums

Forums are online communities where people get together to discuss various stuff. It’d be easy for you to find forums that discuss web hosting. All that’s left is to contribute information, make yourself known, make friends, and build trust with people. If your services are good, they will help get your business more exposure.

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Businesses get access to powerful tools from the internet to boost their growth and expand their territories. However, there are downsides as well. For instance, the amount of control you get over how your business appears online is limited. Your business’ reputation is vulnerable online, as even a single person with an ill intent to damage it, will find it easy to do just that…

…unless you are equipped with some online reputation management (ORM) strategy.

A proper online reputation management obviously requires people with expertise in PR, technology, and online makeovers. They should be able to essentially bury the negative feedbacks, and promote those content that assure clients that your business delivers what it promises.

So why does a business need help managing its reputation? They can do it themselves with their own team, right?

Because it requires profound technical expertise. But of course, there are many things the business can do from their end. However, to repair the damage done to their reputation, they will need services that are tailored to serve that purpose, and personalized for the kind of business their client is running.

It’s a bit sophisticated…kind of.

Basically, it does 3 things.

Monitor. Prevent. Clean up.

Monitoring – This is the most important of the three. You need to know what’s going on with your business.

What people think of it? What alternatives do people have other than your business? How your business appears to them? Will they recommend your services to others?

These are but a few questions you need to consider. There are a number of tools that can provide you with answers to those questions. Google Alerts, Social Mention etc. are two great examples.

Preventing – To prevent something from tarnishing your brand means there should be some amount of protection as well. This protection should extend to not just the company but also to its high profile employees and products/services.

Before we go into the details, here’s another fact about ORM. It shares something common with SEO. You see, branding is one very important asset when it comes to search engine optimization (SEO). Coincidentally, it’s also vital in ORM. For your ORM efforts to work, you need to establish your brand well.

Social media can help you with that. You can start a blogging domain, and share your content in social networking websites. However, keep in mind that social media is a double-edged sword. If the content you publish lacks quality or are irrelevant and useless, your plan will backfire. Readers will respond with negative remarks, and that in turn affects your brand.

The more established your brand, the higher your position in SERPs (Search Engine Results Page).

Clean up – You can be sure this is what you should do next once the damage has been done to your brand. If you think your online reputation is being tarnished, or when you are overwhelmed with targeted attacks from embittered customers, you will need a cleanup service.

Cleanup is just one of the things an ORM service can do for your business. The main purpose is to unify all of your online accounts including social media accounts so as to establish a solid reputation for your business. Technically, SEO falls under ORM too.

Signs that demand ORM

Businesses are willing to be ‘transparent’ in the internet i.e. they are willing to be open to criticisms and feedback. If done right, it can provide beneficial results. However, many SMBs (small – medium sized businesses) choose not to take that risk. It can do more harm than good in the long run though. Businesses online should be transparent, but only if they have an online reputation management service to back them up.

Here are a few signs you should watch out for in your business.

• Your products and/or services getting too much criticism
• If your competitors take advantage of the negative feedback you received
• If your employees are clueless about social media marketing
• If your brand is being negatively publicized in online forums

If even one of them is present, you should hire an online reputation manager, and a reliable one at that.

Tips to keep in mind

If you still want to manage your online reputation by yourself, here are a few tips that could come in handy.

• Earn people’s trust and respect – Trust and respect are hard to gain in the online realm. That is why they are very important for businesses online. Build enough trust and your clients won’t lose faith in you even if a few negative reviews about your products show up online.
• Monitor social media activities – Nowadays, people use social media to post their concerns about a product or to get opinions on a product from a particular brand. If they are talking about you in Facebook, Twitter or any other platform, you should be the first one to know.
• React quickly, respond softly – If you ever receive complaints from customers, make sure not to keep them waiting for a response from you. Let them know that you are aware of the issue, and that you are working on it. Reassure them that things will be fine. But if you keep them waiting, they would get frustrated enough to lose their trust in your brand, and might even post negative feedbacks in public forums.
• Never neglect criticisms – Some firms choose not to respond to criticisms believing that the fire will die out after a while. This will most likely antagonize the customer into taking more drastic measures to get the business’ attention.
• Ask for help if necessary – Sometimes you may feel like your reputation management efforts aren’t making a difference, and is neither protecting nor restoring your brand image. That’s when you should hire a professional online reputation manager.

The post A Beginner’s Guide to Online Reputation Management appeared first on Software Development Company Dubai UAE - Verbat Technologies.

According to the article, the readers were asked to share their opinion on the one marketing activity that would provide the biggest incremental uplift to businesses in leads and sales in 2017. The results showed ‘Content Marketing’ at the top followed by ‘Big Data’.

Each of the labels above were expanded to carefully scope the responses. For instance, the definition of Big Data was expanded to include predictive analytics and insights.

From this result, here are 14 of the top-rated digital marketing tactics which will influence the sector in 2017.

1. Content Marketing

It has been in the top 3 for the last 3 years, emphasizing the significance of devising an integrated content marketing strategy to uplift businesses in the digital world. From HubSpot’s recent research, it was clear that more businesses have now started going for a strategic content marketing approach. This is likely to continue in 2017.

With the cost and competition within content marketing increasing, more focus is expected this year on measuring Content Marketing ROI.

2. Big Data

The marketing applications of Big Data include market, customer insight and predictive analytics. Businesses dealing with a very large quantity of real-time data can use big data analytics to analyze the data, and increase sales through personalization.

Diya Soubra’s Data Science blog mentioned 3 V’s that define Big Data – data variety, data volume, and data velocity.

The V’s indicate why big data is one of the fastest rising trends selected by businesses dealing with a huge amount of data. Smart Insight also mentions that big data has a connection to machine learning, where it’s used to identify propensity to convert different customer behavior and characteristics.

3. Marketing Automation

Marketing automation has also been in the top 3 for the last couple of years, and has undergone many improvements from a business perspective. According to Smart Insight’s research, businesses can still improve their automation further.

Though web personalization, behavioral email marketing and other automation tools for marketing have been successfully establishing their worth in larger businesses, many businesses are still not sure where to begin marketing automation.

4. Mobile Marketing

The opportunities for growth in mobile marketing have gone down lately, as a lot of businesses started focusing more on mobile-friendly web design, and email marketing. This meant they didn’t have to focus more on mobile marketing. It is a fact that retail conversion rates on handheld devices will be significantly lower than that on desktops. However, businesses can still optimize conversion on mobile devices, considering its impact on search marketing evident from Google’s affinity to mobile-friendliness.

According to Smart Insights, this ‘mobile-first’ approach is misleading when you consider the overall customer journey where multiple devices will be used at different points for browsing. They added that mobile strategy should be treated as part of a multichannel strategy instead, rather than as two narrow spectrums (of mobile-only and desktop-only).

5. Social Media Marketing

Smart Insights also seems to agree to the fact that social media still revolutionizes marketing because of its reach, and the options available to engage audiences. Their research also indicated a consistent growth in social media usage, though some social networking platforms became less popular in certain countries.

Social networks like Facebook and Instagram now requires businesses to pay to get the reach they require through the network. Regardless of the mode they choose to monetize, social media marketing still continues to be a hot trend. Social Customer Care and CRM have already started turning heads this year.

6. Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO)

A more data-driven approach of Internet Marketing, CRO was speculated to see the most growth in 2017 by Smart Insights and many other researchers. Though its popularity increased, CRO is still partly in the shadows. Until now, many businesses still haven’t figured out the potential of CRO in increasing leads and sales from their websites. But 2017 could bring about a positive change where we will see CRO getting the attention it deserves.

7. Marketing applications of Internet of Things (IoT)

According to Smart Insights, IoT has been one of the most important marketing technology applications for the last few years, though it is of a much greater value to retailers and device manufacturers.

Many research suggests that a whopping 75 billion connected devices will be present by 2020; almost 10 times the number of people on the planet. According to Smart Insights, IoT devices will be transforming the way we live with this level of data sharing.

8. Search Engine Optimization

Search engine giant, Google, released AMP last year along with announcements on the mobile index. A big increase in AMP smartphone traffic was seen after AMPs were rolled out in September, 2016. Business websites with obstructive popups will be penalized by Google, and the ones that implemented AMP pages will have an edge in 2017.

9. Wearables

Consumable commodities like Apple Watch, Augmented Reality tools etc. turned heads last year. Certain streams of businesses have benefitted from them too. They could play a bigger role this year, as many companies have already started researching ways to leverage the devices in marketing their product. Augmented reality apps have been coming out as well.

10. Paid Search Marketing

Google AdWords has always been the most important form of Pay Per Click. By 2017, they will be switching from standard ads to expanded ads, with two headline fields and one description line, and optimized for mobiles. This could probably be associated with Google’s ‘Mobile First’ strategy. Other forms of paid search marketing will also see some welcome changes this year, presenting more beneficial opportunities for marketers.

11. Online PR

Though it’s commonly linked with SEO or Content Marketing, online PR still retains a low rating. A difference in the way online PR works is much expected in 2017.

12. Communities

Digital marketing communities are still counted as useful platforms for marketers to devise effective marketing strategies.

13. Display Advertising

Banners on ad networks, social media, publishers etc. can still be effective this year depending on how marketers use them.

14. Partnerships including co-marketing

This also made it to Smart Insights’ research results somehow though it still doesn’t have much priority even now. It’s still a neglected aspect of digital marketing according to Smart Insights, but has been used effectively by businesses before.

The post Top Rated Digital Marketing Techniques for 2017 appeared first on Software Development Company Dubai UAE - Verbat Technologies.

What better way to brand a business than use social media!

It is now a vital part of online marketing especially in the UAE. Social media marketing in Dubai has become a competitive sector with changing trends and a customer mindset that a business is not worth checking out if it doesn’t have an active social media page or account.

Businesses have now realized that maintaining a positive image in social media is crucial in achieving the desired results with more traffic to their websites and more sales, in turn. However, they have a lot on their plate to invest more time and money on social media marketing. They either have to keep an in-house digital marketer or hire an online marketing expert.

But these aren’t the only reasons why they need help from external sources. Dubai houses many reputed social media marketing firms that can get the job done affordably. Check out a couple of reasons why it’s best to outsource social media marketing to Dubai.

Saves time

Yes, this is obvious. Hiring a social media marketing company can save a lot of your time. Coming up with creative social network campaigns, keeping track of other departments of your business, updating business events in social networks and marketing your business’ services, optimizing your website for search engines are just a few things you will have to do for your business.

Obviously, you won’t be able to finish everything in time. You will have left quite a lot of to-dos unattended. So, hire a reliable social media marketer in Dubai and let them do what they do best while you focus on your responsibilities.

Needs the brains and experience of professionals

Marketing is like a magic trick when it comes to execution. It requires expertise and skill. Social media marketing is similar, and would be the most effective if it’s handled by someone who knows the tricks of the trade. If used properly, social media marketing can completely refine your business’s brand image.

Even if you are an expert, you still need to spend a lot of time in this, which you can’t afford while you manage your business. So why not hire a social media marketing professional with the brains, expertise, and experience to get the job done and make it worthwhile for your business?

Cost-effective? Yes

Why is social media marketing cost-effective? The answer lies in how many people use social media in the world on a daily basis and how much it costs you to depend on print and television media advertisements to promote your business. Social media networks are undoubtedly the best platforms to build business relationships and exhibit your business brand for the world to see.

Social media marketing costs significantly less than traditional marketing media, while providing quantifiable results. You can improvise your marketing campaigns for better results. In Dubai, many online marketing companies only require a small investment from you for marketing your business in social networks.

Results-driven

When a popular internet marketing company accepts the job of marketing your business in the social media, they will have to stake their reputation to get you the desired results. They will be motivated to make sure the marketing objective is achieved in an affordable budget.

With each results obtained through multiple effective strategies, they can match action plans and other tools and techniques to achieve better results next time. So there’s room for progress.

Think about it.

This concludes our topic, but if you notice closely you will be able to spot the fact that time is a critical factor for social media marketing. You won’t be getting results overnight. However, building relationships, communities and a dedicated social networks following can significantly benefit your business in the long run, provided your campaigns are well thought-out and properly executed.

The post Why it is Best to Outsource Social Media Marketing to Dubai appeared first on Software Development Company Dubai UAE - Verbat Technologies.