A New Year means a new start and the digital marketing world is no exception. Before starting a clean slate, it’s always helpful to revisit your current digital marketing strategies and the role they play in achieving your marketing goals. Here are some key, unavoidable trends for getting ahead in 2017…
Recent studies have shown that more people use mobile devices to search than desktop devices. As such, if your website is not mobile-friendly, your business could be suffering as a result. Naturally, Google will favour websites which are more user-friendly and now shows the “mobile friendly” words next to search results on smartphones which indicates to users that the website is suitable for mobile viewing. Thankfully, many businesses responded to this by ensuring their sites were mobile responsive but there are still a few who don’t seem to have caught on.
If you’re unsure as to whether your site is mobile-friendly, you can run a quick check by entering your website URL here or give us a call to learn more.
A recent survey carried out by Jakob Nielson revealed that 76% of people believe companies do not tell the truth in advertisements. Consumers want authentic opinions on products, services and brands from peers, friends and trusted bloggers. A proven way of dealing with this is Social Media Marketing and Bloggers Outreach which provide your business with a voice without the sales pitch.
Whilst this can seem scary to some, it’s never been easier to access information and see what people are saying about your business. Services such as TrustPilot and Google Reviews can make it easy for business owners to ask their customers for reviews, manage the negative and promote the positive. Unfortunately, you can’t please everyone but you can publicly show your excellent customer service in dealing with those tricky customers.
Did you watch a video on your way to work today? The chances are you did. If so, the chances are even stronger that your customers did too. HubSpot data has shown that almost 50 percent of internet users look for videos related to a product or service before visiting a store (Google, 2016). As such, video is no longer an option when it comes to social media marketing. In 2017, video should be an essential part of every business’ digital marketing strategy or you will miss out. If you’re still not convinced of its value, did you know…
• Marketers who use video grow revenue 49% faster than non-video users. (Aberdeen, 2015)
• Using video will improve your SEO and make you more visible on Google when using sites such as Youtube and Vimeo
• 4x customers would rather watch a video about a product than read about it. (Animoto, 2015)
• 43 percent of people want to see more video content from marketers. (HubSpot, 2016)
When Google launched Google My Business, its primary goal was help smaller, local businesses to succeed. Giving them a ‘free’ page on the Google platform, this increased the odds of a local business showing up in SERPs. However, if the local competition wasn’t fierce enough, a larger number of small businesses have finally begun to understand the need for digital marketing which means the space is getting smaller by the day.
As such, it’s the job of marketers and SEOs working with small businesses to monitor the ever-changing Google local algorithm scene and be coming up with new and creative ways to give their clients a fresh edge. Whether it’s localised content marketing, PPC and Paid Social, sitemaps (that includes video sitemaps), checking their clients are mobile-friendly and more. Push the boundaries with your marketing this year.
To find out more about any of the services mentioned in this article or how these trends could benefit your business, you can contact Fingo via our enquiries page or email us at hello@fingo.co.uk.