Digital Marketing - Two Trends In 2018 Every Business Can Use

Digital marketing is the wave that every online business is surfing, wether you like it or not.

There are two trends generating more momentum that you want your business to take advantage of, starting now.

But first, make sure you are not making these 10 most common website mistakes ....




#1 Digital Marketing Trend - Video Marketing

Video marketing is the practice of creating fresh video content to publish on your website, YouTube, and in your social media channels.  For example, one of our video marketing components is the video above and the video at the end of this post.

Every video has a minimum of three elements....

#1 Header slide that announces the video, gives a preview

#2 The main content of the video

#3 Ending slide when has your business logo, website, and closing statement or photo.

The header and ending slide content will vary with the degree of your video expertise.  The other necessary element is SEOing your YouTube channel, but first just get your video marketing mojo going by consistently producing videos.

One local business who produced one video a week for two years, with videos of 60 to 75 seconds in length, produced 24,222 video views over 12 months and their website traffic increased 325%.

YouTube is already the second largest search engine in the world.

Five current video stats that help you understand the power of video .....

82% of Twitter users watch video content on Twitter 

YouTube has over a billion users, almost one-third of total internet users. 

45% of people watch more than an hour of Facebook or YouTube videos a week.

More than 500 million hours of videos are watched on YouTube each day.

More video content is uploaded in 30 days than the major U.S. television networks have created in 30 years.  

(Source: WordStream)

The simplest method for many businesses to get some video on their website, social media, or in a YouTube channels is 1) use their smartphone to capture material, or 2) convert existing photos, or new photos, into a video.

Final Cut Pro (FCP) is an excellent software that can be used to make quick movies and easily, automatically uploaded to YouTube, Vimeo, or Facebook.

The key to using photos is that they are already "digital media" on your smart phone so no need to scan them like the olden days.

Simply transfer the files to the desktop or laptop computer you are using with FCP and take the next step of creating your video.

This is the most compelling research we have for you ....

Sixty-four percent of consumers make a purchase after watching branded social videos. (Source: tubularinsights)

What that means to your business marketing plan is a video demonstrating your product/service, or explaining the benefits/features of your product/service, is marketing money well spent.

Video is permanent media.  Your YouTube channel is always open to be viewed by potential customers. As your product/services morphs then so do your new videos. YouTube marketing, when done correctly, will outlast your yellow page ads and cost you less marketing money.

SUMMARY

Make your plan to generate videos on a consistent basis. The videos do not have to be a Hollywood production. Start with one minute videos and build your video expertise. If you want assistance this is a link to free tutorial on making videos with FCP from your photos.

#2 Digital Marketing Trend - Voice Search

Voice search is all about organic results in the search engine.

If you are not seeing your business as organic listing on the first page of search results (FPSR) then, most likely, you are not going to see your business displayed on FPSR from a voice search.


MOBILE SEARCH APP

Google now has a search app just for smart phones. This is not the Chrome browser but an entirely different app.  You will find it in the Apple and Android stores by a search using "google mobile" without using the quotation marks.


VERIFY YOUR BUSINESS RESULTS

The best way to see if your business is listed in a voice search is to use a smart phone and execute the voice search function, being sure to use phrases people will use to find your products/services.

Mobile voice-related searches are 3X more likely to be local-based than text-related searches. (Source: Search Engine Watch) 

 2 in 5 adults use voice search once daily. (Source: Location World)

 In May 2016, 1 in 5 searches on an Android app in the USA were through speech. (Source: KPCB)

 19% of people use Siri at least daily.  (HubSpot, 2015) (Source: HubSpot)

SUMMARY

Two steps to get forward movement on your voice search penetration:

#1 Check to see how and where you are currently displaying organically. Use your smart phone and your listed of your business keywords and determine your standings on FPSR.

#2  Make a plan to modify your content marketing to adjust the results you have uncovered. Use the Google data structure tools to make adjustments on your website that will adjust SEO results.




Previous post in this thread ......

Digital marketing is an umbrella term for all of your online marketing efforts. Businesses leverage digital channels such as Google search, social media, email, and their websites to connect with their current and prospective customers.

SEO: Add Social Sharing Buttons To Your Site That Allow Visitors To Share you Content

Social media is crucial to the success of any company's digital marketing strategy. Add a free social media marketing tool to your web site which is explained in this video. This video shows how to easily add social media buttons to your web page and there is NO CODING NEEDED.

SEO: Optimize Key Words On Your Web Pages And Produce Improved Search Rankings; Online Marketing Tip

Content marketing requires optimizing the key words on each web page. This vides shows you how to use Google Ad Words to determine the best key words for your product or service. With that information you can build better page descriptions and overall page content to improve your organic search rankings.

Three Essential Ingredients To Successful SEO, The Secrets Of Web Masters

Successful online marketing means telling the search engine what you are providing so then your target audience can find you more easily. Get your site to the top of organic search results by knowing how to complete these three very important aspects of each web page.

Upgrade Your Design Skills: Tutorial On Multiple Stroke Technique

Affinity Designer is a wonderful alternative to expensive subscription programs like Photoshop. Besides having the same or more features, Affinity Designer is a one time purchase, as of this post under $100.

This is a great tutorial on upgrading your art design and web pages using a multiple stoke technique.

SEO: Free Online Marketing Tool For Local Businesses

Fine tune your local business listing by displaying your business on Google and Bing search results, as a location on the map. Short video to explain the process of putting this free marketing tool to work for your business. Reach your target audience for free with the search map results.

Technology: Google releases new compression technology

Google just released an image compression technology called RAISR (Rapid and Accurate Super Image Resolution) designed to save your precious data without sacrificing photo quality.

Claiming to use up to 75 percent less bandwidth, RAISR analyzes both low and high-quality versions of the same image. Once analyzed, it learns what makes the larger version superior and simulates the differences on the smaller version.

In essence, it's using machine learning to create an Instagram-like filter to trick your eye into believing the lower-quality image is on par with its full-sized variant. Unfortunately for the majority of smartphone users, the tech only works on Google+ where Google claims to be upscaling over a billion images a week. If you don't want to use Google+, you'll just have to wait a little longer. Google plans to expand RAISR to more apps over the coming months. Hopefully that means Google Photos.

https://www.blog.google/products/google-plus/saving-you-bandwidth-through-machine-learning/

Online Shopping: The Top 3 Online Resources (research)

Comparing Online Shopping Resources

The chart below says it all.

It's not so much that you need to be selling your stuff on Amazon. No, it's more like, people are shopping online at a reputable, easy to use web site where they KNOW a fair price is offered.  Amazon is not always the cheapest price, but they do have reputation for excellent service.

If you want to build your business, then steal some of Amazon's web site aspects and use those to start building your brand.

Courtesy zerohedge.com

Online Marketing; 7 points of understanding online shopping behavior

Do people use the web to go shopping? Research says they do.

#1 81% of shoppers conduct online research before making big purchases. (Retailing Today, 2014) 

#2 44% of people go directly to Amazon to start their product searches, compared to 34% who use search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo to search for products. (Marketing Land, 2015) 

#3 Mobile commerce makes up 30% of all U.S. ecommerce. (Internet Retailer, 2015)

#4 Sales during the 2016 holiday season on Amazon amounted to almost 40 percent of online spending (Slice Intelligence, 2016).

#5 Mobile devices accounted for 31 percent of holiday sales, and the desktop generated 69 percent. (Adobe, 2016).

#6 Almost 70% of the survey participants labeled facial recognition technology as creepy when asked about it being used by retailers to direct salespersons toward high-value shoppers. (RichRevelance, 2016)

#7  Online product reviews on in-store shopping in a new report called the ROBO economy: How reading reviews impacts offline sales. For every $1 online influenced by reviews, offline impact at least $4. (MarketingLand).

For customize marketing plans and a free 30 minute review of your web site, send us a email here.  All services are confidential and provided by Ez Web Company, a leader in small business online marketing.

SEO: eight tips to build your 2017 marketing success

Eight marketing questions, with researched answered to guide your 2017 online marketing efforts.

What is the most used search engine?
#1 Taking into account all searches performed in all search engines, 67.7% are done in Google. (NetMarketShare.com, 2015) 

Are keywords important in a title for SEO?
#2 Just 53 percent of the top 20 URLs, of organic search results, included a keyword in their title. (SearchEnigneLand, 2016)

How do people make their search?
#3 50% of search queries are four words or longer. (WordStream, 2016) 

What pages of search engine results are used/viewed?
#4 The search pages occupying positions 1 through 3 have an average Click-Through Rate of 36 percent. (SearchEnigneLand, 2016)

What domain extension is used most?
#5 86% of the top 10 domains now use the .com domain extension. (SearchEnigneLand, 2016)

How do businesses use search engines when buying services/products?
#6 B2B (business to business) researchers do 12 searches on average prior to engaging on a specific brand's site. (Google, 2014) 

What is the #1 marketing strategy in online marketing?
#7 A total of 72% of marketers say relevant content creation was the most effective SEO tactic. (Ascend2, 2015) 

What is a significant challenge to successful online marketing?
#8 About 40% of marketers say the most challenging obstacle to search engine optimization success is changing search algorithms. (Ascend2, 2015)

For customize marketing plans and a free 30 minute review of your web site, send us a email here.  All services are confidential and provided by Ez Web Company, a leader in small business online marketing.