Modern Imprint | SEO, Social Media : September 2017

Monday, September 4, 2017

Image Search | Marketing Strategy

How To Use Image Search To Enhance Marketing Strategy

Online search is a routine practice among consumers and marketers alike. Need some information on a product? Just "Google it": A phrase that people say as easily as they use the word “Kleenex” as a generic term for a product.

Yet advances in search algorithms are creating nuanced search options, tailored to varyious digital media. Among those nuances is image search, with contextual tactics becoming as valuable to digital marketers as real estate to a New York City realtor.

The latest image search innovations from Pinterest, Google, and Amazon, are aimed at helping users find relevant information through contextual association. By picking information related to images interest to the users, a visual search becomes a discovery engine for products and services, encouraging conversions as a result.

The image search landscape

Pinterest, for exampled, introduced Lens, an app feature that allows users to aim a camera at an object, and find pins and pinboards related to it. This is a significant catalyst for consumer sales, since many Pinterest users swap images of products.

Another app, from Amazon, added a similar feature for Prime customers, called Spark. Users view a feed of product posts and photos shared by other Prime customers.

Customers can respond by clicking on the shopping bag icon, or interacting with people by commenting or "smiling" on their posts. The feed allows customers to learn more about products through the images that customers comment on and share, much like a social media platform.

Meanwhile, Google introduced its own features to its Image Search engine. Query results now provide navigational highlights such as text that clarifies the action you can take, and badges that indicate what sites or links are associated with the image. These highlights can direct potential customers to associated materials and aid research behind a product or service image.

Marketing Strategy - Content Marketing, Social Media

7 Ways to Correct a Failing Marketing Strategy

No entrepreneur has a perfect first marketing campaign. Even if you’re experienced as a marketer or entrepreneur, you can’t really dial things in until you have data to inform your campaign.

So let’s say you have a marketing strategy that’s, for the most part, “failing.” You aren’t seeing the results you predicted, and from what you can tell, your return on investment (ROI) is either negligible or negative. I’m going to assume that this isn’t just a gut feeling or an early reaction, either -- you’ve looked up the hard numbers, and can objectively demonstrate that your marketing strategy isn’t working the way you’d hoped.

You don’t want to abandon your strategy altogether, so what can you do to correct it?

1. Give it more time.

First, I want to acknowledge that some strategies—like SEO—take a long time to start paying off. If you’re investing in your brand image, or if you’re relying on inbound channels of traffic to bring you more customers, don’t get discouraged after only a few weeks of effort.

On the other hand, some strategies -- like PPC advertising -- should start working immediately and improve over time as you make adjustments based on the data. If you’re working on a long-term strategy, consider giving your campaign more time to develop. Otherwise, try one of the approaches below.

2. Differentiate it.

The marketing world is a competitive one, especially in popular realms like content marketing and social media. There are thousands of brands competing for your target audience’s attention, so what makes your strategy unique? If you’re saying the same things that your competitors are saying, or if your design blends in as background noise, your campaign is going to falter. Correct this by saying something unique that only your brand could say. Sometimes, it’s the only way to cut through the noise.

Video Marketing | Small Business Strategy

Why Having A Video Marketing Strategy Is Critical To Your Business

When I wrote about the value of using video in marketing back in 2015, little did I know I'd look back on that post as the seeds of something that's snowballed into something much bigger.

At the time, I referenced stats that led me to pose a simple question: Why wouldn’t a company dive into the video marketing world? When nearly 90% of website visitors will hang out longer on sites with video than on those without, it was a prescient inquiry.

Fast-forward to mid-2017, and I’ve realized the question isn’t “Why wouldn’t you?"; it’s “Why aren’t you?”

I can hear the knee-jerk replies: "Video is too complicated." "It’s out of our budget." "It’s not relevant to our market."

With all due respect, such objections couldn't be further from the truth, especially when you consider innovative new options for video ad production and strategizing.

Social Media Marketing Strategy | Social Media Tips

Create Your Social Media Marketing Strategy in 4 Easy Steps

Social media, if used correctly can be a powerful tool for driving towards the achievement of business goals.

However, most business dive into social media marketing without a clear definitive plan and often end up wasting time and money.

To be successful on social media, you need a plan. Your plan will guide you through the ever changing world of social media towards achieving your business goals.

Most businesses, unfortunately, don’t know how or where to start.

In this post, we’ll show you how to create a social media marketing strategy in 4 easy steps.

Social Media | Social Media Marketing, Marketing Strategy

5 Ways To Future Proof Your Social Media Marketing Strategy

Before Facebook, there was Friendster, while before YouTube there was ShareYourWorld. And do you remember when the iPhone was first introduced and MySpace was all the rage? That was a mere 10 years ago.

In the span of a decade, our modern culture and lifestyle have changed unimaginably. Computers and laptops have already been replaced by smartphones as the prime device to access the internet and everything seems to revolve around social media platforms. And while change is positive such uncertainty can lead to lower market investments.

Knowing that SMM is a crucial part of online presence, most business owners and marketers alike are often torn on the matter. Do you put all your money on a horse that might not race tomorrow?

SEO - Search Engine Optimization | Internet Marketing

Ranking #1 is Pointless – Here’s Why Your SEO Goal is Leads, Not Rankings

Every SEO conversation starts with “rankings.”

Every SEO KPI starts with “#1.”

But here’s the thing.

Both of those are wrong.

Your only goal in SEO is new leads and sales. So in that sense, ranking #1 is pointless.

Ranking first feels nice, but if you’re focusing just on Rank 1, you’re ignoring a huge part of the customer acquisition process.

Generating leads – and consequently revenue – requires a different approach.

It forces you to re-think little details, like how you’re optimizing title tags. And it forces you to re-think big details, like how your team is organized.

The end result, though, is that you can often drive more leads and sales without ranking in the first position, for less money and time spent.

SEO - Content Marketing | SEO Tips, SEO Strategy

How To Optimize Your SEO Results Through Content Creation

It’s now become pretty common knowledge that one of the best ways to increase brand exposure is through content marketing. However, the best content in the world won’t help you generate leads unless the public is able to discover it in the first place.

This is where search engine optimization (SEO) comes in. By optimizing your content for search, you can ensure that more people will find – and potentially engage with – your organization.

Here are a few ways to raise your content’s SEO value.

1. Use Keywords Effectively

75% of Internet users never scroll past the first page of search results, which means you’ll need to get on that first page to capture people’s attention. One of the best ways to do this is by coming up with strong keywords that people looking for information about your niche would use when searching.

Chances are you’re already naturally including keywords in your content, since you’re providing information about a topic. However, there are often keywords you haven’t considered that can help you get higher in search rankings.

Try brainstorming what kinds of language potential customers might use to ask questions or describe problems associated with your product or service. Think about relevant topics to your industry, and then create a list of potential keywords for each topic. You can also use keyword research tools like the Google Adwords Keyword Tool to come up with your keyword lists. At that point, you can optimize your content for relevant keywords.

A good rule of thumb is to keep your focus on just one or two keywords per piece of content. This will help you keep the focus of your content narrow enough to make it easier to place keywords in strategic locations – like the first 65 characters of your headline – and avoid keyword stuffing.

2. Optimize Multiple Features

Along with the beginning of your headline, there are a few other strategic locations to place your keywords in order to help you best increase the SEO value of your content.

For instance, one of the easiest – but often overlooked – areas to optimize your content is in the URL. Having a clear, simple URL with a keyword or two will help search engines easily figure out what’s on the page, making it more likely that your content will appear higher up in search results.

You should also take into account your post length when putting up written content. Although Google tends to prioritize long articles over shorter ones, which means that you should have at least 300 words or so, overly long posts can turn off potential readers. This means articles should be somewhere around 700 words, and you should try to put keywords in about 1 – 2% of your text.

Finally, images are a great way to not only make your content aesthetically pleasing, but also boost your content’s SEO value. When you upload a photo, include keywords in the file name and fill out the alt text field with a brief description that includes a lot of those same keywords. Alt text is how search engines understand what an image is about, so filling it with keywords will help your content sit higher in the search rankings. Since 93% of online experiences begin with a search engine, this is extremely valuable to getting more eyes on your website.

SEO: Voice Search | Search Engine Marketing

How Voice Search Will Change The Future Of SEO

Voice search is undeniably growing at a rapid pace, and for good reason — it’s fast, convenient, allows you to search on the go, and it’s just cool. Even better, as the technology behind voice search services like Siri and Cortana improves, it’s becoming increasingly reliable. Because of this, smart marketers are developing ways to tailor their SEO strategies for voice search. As typed-out search terms become less popular, it’s going to get more and more important to start making those adjustments.

Here are some ways that the rise of voice search will shape the future of SEO, and some tips on how to prepare.

1. Use Of Natural Speech Patterns

Most people don’t type the way they speak, especially when it comes to searching for something online. Think about it, when you’re searching for something through typing, you tend to use shorthand (like typing in “weather Santa Cruz” if you’re looking for the forecast in Santa Cruz). When you speak, it’s more likely that you’ll use the complete question (“What’s the weather like in Santa Cruz tomorrow?”). Because of this, it’s growing more important for voice search and SEO to pick up on users’ natural speech patterns.

As the programming behind voice search gets more refined — in 2012 the word error rate was over 20%, but now it’s as low as 8% — it’s getting much better at picking up our speech quirks. This means that marketers interested in voice search SEO will need to reflect this in their strategies.

One great way to do this is using voice query research tools like Rank Tracker. This tool lets you type in keywords with wildcards to help you develop language that better reflects the natural speech patterns of voice search users.

You should also consider your online content in the context of voice search. To boost your search rankings, it’s important that you incorporate natural speech in your content. Consider using a more conversational tone to pick up on the nuances of everyday language.