Digital marketing tips for small businesses: It's already been a busy year for digital marketers, with new trends, updated technology, and unexpected developments across the web.
As we enter the year's second half, it's a good time to reflect on your digital marketing strategy. Are you doing everything you should? Are you doing things you should stop?
If you want to end the year on a high note, we've compiled this collection of digital marketing tips to help guide you.
Prioritize Mobile Experiences
It shouldn't surprise that more people now browse the web via mobile devices than desktop computers.
Surprisingly, some companies still have insufficient resources to create a great mobile experience.
You should expect more than half of the traffic to your website to come from a phone or tablet. Therefore, your mobile website needs to be as good, if not better, than your standard site.
If you need to upgrade your mobile game, it's time to invest in responsive design and a thorough re-evaluation of your digital marketing plan.
Secure Your Website
With so much of life now existing in the digital space, more and more people are becoming concerned with cybersecurity.
If your website doesn't already have an SSL certificate and operates as HTTPS, now's a good time to take care of it.
Sites that are still unsecured are known to fall in search engine rankings. And as an added incentive to switch, Google Chrome now displays a prominent warning about unencrypted web pages.
Digital marketing tips: Don't let security concerns scare potential customers and clients!
Hire a Blogger
Are you putting blog content on your website? If not, it's time to hire a writer or work with a content creation service.
Blog content is one of your best digital marketing tools. Blogs are essential to search engine optimization and, thus, vital to drawing more people to your website.
The more relevant content you create, the higher your rank in search results. And the leads you generate from people visiting your site via your content will be rich.
Create Video Content
Like blog posts, videos are another form of content you should create.
Humans are visual creatures. Videos are thus one of the most effective forms of communication.
The average person won't care to read your press release. But Visitors will better receive your message if you make a fun, creative video to share on social media and your website.
The video also allows you to use the world's second-largest search engine behind Google: YouTube. Millions of people search for videos on Youtube daily, but you can only take advantage of this if you have video content.
Optimize for Voice Search
This year, two of the most uttered phrases have probably been "Hey, Alexa" and "Okay, Google..."
People search online through voice commands with the exploding popularity of home assistant devices such as the Amazon Echo and Google Home.
Digital marketing tips: Because of this growing trend, it's becoming essential to optimize your website, blog content, and product pages for voice search. Try including more FAQ sections and use more conversational keywords.
Keep an Eye on Social Media News
Social media remains an integral part of any digital marketing strategy. As always, it's essential to monitor the news surrounding social networks.
This year has already been a big year for social media, but not in a good way.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg remains under fire for users' data allegedly influencing the 2016 US Presidential election. The news prompted the #DeleteFacebook movement, leaving the largest social network waves of people.
Another social app, Snapchat, is in a significant crisis following an overwhelmingly negative response to its recent design update. As a result, Snapchat use has dropped, and Snap stock has plummeted.
With the recent trends in social networks, is it time for your company to rethink its social strategy?
Develop Brand Advocacy
More powerful than any advertisement is the sought-after personal recommendation.
Ads, after all, are biased toward the company. As a result, many people find them hard to trust.
But a recommendation by an unbiased third party can be very influential. That's why you should put some digital marketing resources toward brand advocacy.
An unaffiliated brand advocate promotes a brand from its appreciation and support. They will tell others about you or defend you in case of controversy.
Digital marketing tips: Developing brand advocacy is about nurturing customer relationships. There are plenty of ways to do this online as a digital marketer. For example, engaging on social media or offering a special discount to followers can be a significant step in creating brand advocates.
Learn to Leverage AI
Artificial intelligence is rapidly changing in many industries, and digital marketing is one.
Long a part of sci-fi visions of the future, machine learning and AI are finally here. In most cases, AI uses large amounts of data plugged into algorithms to predict a given outcome. Then, the AI can work backward and adjust its formulas for more accurate results over time.
How can you leverage AI as a digital marketer? One way is through something called predictive marketing.
By using data collected about an individual, such as their search history and other stored information on browser cookies, AI can predict the needs and desires of a potential customer. For example, if somebody searches for "how to fix a leaky faucet," they would be a great person to show an ad for a plumbing service.
Ethical concerns remain about using too much data, but finding ways to incorporate machine learning and AI into your digital marketing strategy can help you build rich leads.
More Digital Marketing Tips for a Successful End of the Year
These are but a few digital marketing tips for you and your business.
If you want to end with a robust digital effort, check out the rest of our digital marketing blog posts for helpful hints and essential things to know. Finally, contact us today if you need web design and marketing near me.
