Aaron’s Top Nine Digital Marketing Trends For 2021

Without question, so much has happened this past year. Many of these events have drastically altered the Digital Marketing landscape. From changing consumer habits due to the pandemic to Google updates, those changes are surely here to stay. What worked early last year may not work today. The same could be said when working with different types of clients.

With that being said, Digital Marketers should take note and work to adjust to these changes. In Digital Marketing, it’s all about adapting to constant change and being flexible in changing your online outreach strategy. When it comes to trends, there are nine trends we as Digital Marketers need to get ahead of. Let’s take a look at these, shall we?

Voice And Visual Search

Today’s consumers are looking for easier ways to find what they’re looking for online. At the same time, they’re also looking for more convenient ways to do that as well. They would really love it if they didn’t have to type or leave their couch. With this in mind, it’s no surprise that voice search has become more important by the day.

The same can be said about visual search. The infamous saying that ‘a picture means a thousand words’ has become truer today than it has in the past. When it comes to visuals, marketers need to focus on image alt-text and sitemaps to ensure success. As for voice, they need to focus more on conversational keywords as opposed to computer text. For more tips about optimizing for voice search, check out my previous blog post here.

Experience Marketing

Experience Marketing (EM) has also become an evolving trend to look out for in 2021. This talks about how customers define how businesses respond to them and not vice versa. Every customer touch point – online reviews, web chats, surveys – turns into opportunities to discover vital insights to enhance the customer experience (CX).

That’s why you want to go further than just traditional feedback methods than just metrics like the Customer Effort Score (CES). While these do tell you how happy customers are, it doesn’t tell you what to do with that information. EM does that via these three ways.

It deepens the reach of data mining across customer reviews and survey responses.
It develops insights in seconds via machine learning.
It alerts the right people and uncovered patterns in customer data.

This helps teams to move quickly and make more informed choices on how to improve that CX.

User Generated Content (UGC)

When it comes to content, online consumers are much likely to trust that of regular folks than they do traditional advertising. Consumers today crave experiences with brands that are enjoyable and inspire them to take action. They also want proof before they buy and want to make sure that they’re making the right choice.

UGC helps build communities, relates to regular folks, and allows brands to meet their customers where they’re at. On top of that, it goes a long way in helping brands generate lots of content. UGC not only helps provide that social proof brands. It also helps build relationships with customers. With that said, brands should consider making UGC part of their online marketing strategy.

Reputation Management

With what has happened during this past year, It has become increasingly important to manage your reputation online. Whether you get good or bad reviews, you always want to respond to them promptly. It’s not a deal-breaker for potential customers if your brand gets a bad review. It all comes down to how you respond to it. The best way to respond is by showing that you’re committed to resolving their situation

One thing you should never do is try to game the system by creating fake reviews. That never ends well as customers look to multiple review sites to ensure that a certain brand is legit. Customers also check to ensure that brands will positively advance their cause. The best way forward is to listen to the customers’ concerns and work towards a solution that best benefits them. By going this route, they’ll view you more favorably and you’ll be more likely to end with a great review.

Personalization

In today’s online world, people prefer brands that best relate to them and are more human. In fact, 80% of consumers are more likely to buy from you if you provide them a personalized experience. That same HubSpot study also states that 99% of marketers say that personalization helps advance customer relations.

Whether you’re starting an email marketing campaign or creating web content, you must keep these stats in mind. Work to tailor that content to better meet the specific needs of online consumers. Also, don’t be afraid to share your story. After all, people love stories that speak their minds and make them feel that your brand relates to them.

That’s why you want your content to be relatable to your audience and not just about your brand. That’s how you’ll be able to stand out amongst the crowd online and gain good-paying customers.

User Experience (UX)

Without a doubt, it’s vital to give your online audience an excellent user experience (UX). This means that you need to do several things to make that happen.

Make Sure That Your Website Is Up To Speed

Site speed is a key factor when it comes to consumers choosing to stay or leave a site. Each second matters in this case. If your site takes too long to load, people will leave your site for your competition. That’s why you need to work to make sure that your site is up to speed. The GTmetrix Speed Test is a great tool to use to check your site speed and will give you details on how to do so.

Make Sure That Your Website Is Seamless Across Devices

You always want to make sure that your site is easy to navigate across all devices whether it’s mobile, desktop, or tablet. This means that you need to do these three things to make that happen.

Use responsive design to allow your website to adjust to the screen size of the device being used.
Make your content easy to see.
Ensure that site users don’t have to pinch to zoom in.

By keeping these steps in mind, you’ll help ensure that the UX of your site will be very good.

Content That Is Easy To Consume

In this day in age, people are always on the go. With that said, making your content scannable and easy to read is vital. This means work to create content that is easy to read via a standard reading level. You must have a Flesch Reading Ease Score between 60 and 79 to achieve success. To go the extra mile, aim for a score of 80 or higher.

The Ease Calculator helps check your score and guides you while you write your content. Grammarly also helps you make your content easy to read for your readers. It also helps you catch mistakes you thought you’d never make.

Here are some tips below on how to make your content easy to read.

Make your paragraphs no more than 3 to 5 sentences long.
Divide your content with sub-headers and make sure your H3 headers are below the H2 ones.
Add bullet points as needed.

Also, use the Inverted Pyramid writing style. This is where you put your key points at the beginning and then work to entice readers to read more. With this method, your readers will be able to better scan your content text and be able to derive value. This makes it more likely that they’ll take the actions that you want them to take.

Influencer Marketing

Influencer Marketing will be even bigger this year compared to last year. As mentioned earlier, today’s consumers look to brands that are authentic, human, and can relate to them. Study shows that 92% of consumers trust an influencer more than they do corporate ads or celebrities. That’s why brands should take note of this and make influencer marketing part of their plans.

When considering influencers to partner with, go for those who would best relate to your brand. It can be tempting to court macro-influencers like baseball players but that might not work for your brand. If you’re a smaller brand, you should consider micro-influencers. They may have a smaller following but they are cheaper and would do best at relating to your audience. All this is vital to keep in mind when considering influencer marketing.

Link-Building

Link-building is an essential part of any brand’s Digital Marketing plans. With that said, it will only work if you don’t cut corners and actually use this practice to build relationships. One thing you never want to do is to seek links that are not relevant to your brand’s cause. You also don’t want to buy links either. Those type of Black-Hat SEO tactics makes you look spammy and loses you credibility with your audience.

The best way forward is to seek links with others who will best benefit your brand’s cause. It will help you build trust with your audience and gain credibility with the search engines. Once again, Quality over Quantity is the way to go with link-building as is the case in other marketing situations. It will be a win-win scenario for both you and your linking partner thanks to your disciplined approach to seeking high-quality links.

Consumer-First Strategies Help Transform Your Brand For The Better

There’s no doubt that putting the needs of your valued consumers front and center is key to success. It will also help you overcome these fast-changing trends and help you stand out amongst the online crowd. This will also help you in your quest in helping your brand become that next great story. With that said, keep these nine trends in mind and you’ll help transform your business for the better.

What other Digital Marketing trends should brands keep an eye out on in today’s online world? What other strategies should brands adapt to grow their online presence and ensure success? Questions? Comments? Please feel free to share this article and share your thoughts below.

Eight PPC Tips To Help Grow Your Online Presence In 2021

Another eventful year is now behind us and another has just begun. So many events and changes have occurred this past year. This is especially the case when it comes to the fast-evolving world that is Digital Marketing.

From Google Core Updates to fast-changing consumer trends, having a solid Digital Marketing plan is basically a must. This helps ensure that your audience has high-quality content that best addresses their needs when they most need it. It also helps your brand stand out amongst the vast sea of brands competing for those same customers.

A great way to achieve those things is with a top-notch Pay Per Click (PPC) strategy. PPC is a form of Digital Marketing in which brands pay each time visitors click on their online ad. In other words, you only pay when someone clicks on an ad whether it’s search, display, social, or ad types. These eight PPC tips below will help address the users’ needs and grow your brand’s online presence in 2021. With that said, let’s dive in and find out what PPC can do for brands like yours.

Strive For A High-Quality User Experience (UX)

As I discussed in my previous blog post, a high-quality user experience (UX) for website visitors is a must. First, you need to ensure that your website is up to speed. The longer it takes for your page to load, the higher the bounce rate will be. That means that customers will be lost if your page is slow at loading. That is why taking steps to improve site speed is crucial. Using the GTmetrix tool will test your site speed and gives you details on how to fix on-page issues.

You also want to ensure that your site is easy to navigate. To address this, work to make your content easy to find in the least amount of clicks possible. It’s advised that you limit it to three clicks or less. That helps site visitors find what they’re looking for quickly and helps make their on-site experience that much better.

In addition to all that, you want to ensure that your website is compliant with responsive design. This means that your website needs to smoothly adjust to screen sizes. In other words, the website automatically changes to fit the device in use whether a desktop, tablet, or mobile device. This helps improve that UX greatly to the point where you don’t have to pinch the screen to zoom in. A convenient experience indeed.

Provide A Consistent Experience For Your Site Visitors

Without question, consumers look for consistency when they consider doing business with a brand. This is vital when it comes to PPC campaigns. Not only must your PPC ads be of most relevance to your audience, but there’s also something else to consider. You must also show consistency in each phase of your online campaign. This rings true for landing pages as this is the first thing your audience sees upon clicking your ad.

It’s not enough to just attract people to our website via PPC ads. We must also strive to give them a top-notch landing page experience once they’ve arrived at our page. We sure don’t want our ads to say one thing and for our landing page to say another. That will be a big turn off for potential customers. With that said, here are three steps we can take to ensure our landing page is consistent with our ads.

Make sure that you match your ad text to your main keyword at least.
Match your ad to the right landing page where customers can do what you’ve promised to them.
Ensure that your landing page is relevant to your ad text and keywords.

Following these steps will help ensure a high-quality UX and make it more likely that you’ll gain new customers.

Take Advantage Of New Features

Looking to really make your PPC ads stand out towards the right online consumers? Then making use of the new features and ad extension options should be a big part of your plans. Promotion extensions that are right below your ad title help searchers spot a top-notch deal with a slight glance. They can also help you generate high-quality leads for your brand.

Call extensions are another great option in helping you attract leads. With this type of extension, you can add a phone number without having to use any of the primary copy. It even lets people tap a button to call your business via a mobile device. The best part is that it’s really easy and quick to add so definitely consider this for your PPC ads.

Make Social Media A Part Of Your PPC Marketing Plans

Another crucial avenue in helping your PPC ads succeed is social media. With 84% of people with internet access on social media, making it part of your PPC strategy is vital. Most people are on platforms like Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, LinkedIn on a daily basis. All age groups, especially young people, make up a big chunk of that audience.

This makes social media an attractive avenue for PPC marketers. In this new year, definitely add social media to your PPC marketing mix to go along with your Google Ads.

Dig Deep In Targeting Your Audience

When we say target your audience, we mean target the RIGHT audience that’s most likely to go with your brand. You always want to be detail-oriented when identifying which audience you’ll be going after. You can specify things like household income or age group to appeal to a specific audience. For ad preferences, you can exclude people that you think may not appeal to your services.

Let’s say that you’re selling super expensive Rolex watches. You might exclude people who make less than $75,000 a year. We say this since they’re less likely to spend big bucks on those kinds of fine items. This is the kind of targeting you should consider for your PPC ads. It will go a long way in attracting the exact audience you’ve been seeking to look into your brand.

Get Ahead Of The Game With Voice Search

Voice search has also become important In this day in age. Half of all online searches are now being initiated by voice. With that said, making voice part of your PPC marketing plan should be one of your top priorities. While paid voice search hasn’t yet made it to the mainstream, it will emerge in the near future. Until that happens, you can be ahead of the game with some high-quality preparation strategies.

There are two great ways to accomplish just that. One great plan is to enhance your website so that it can have a more conversational tone. Since people are more conversational when making voice searches, it’ll significantly improve your chances of attracting the right people. You also should update your FAQ pages on your site with the use of long-tail keywords. These actions will help set you up for success in voice search both now and in the future.

Get Ahead With Visual Search

Visual search is also on the rise and will be expected to see major advances in the near future. Visual search works by using an image as the search query as opposed to just a text search. Let’s say you take a pic of a mini-fridge. What happens after that is the visual search will output the links to buy it. People want results quickly and visual search helps achieve that than typing in something long.

A great way to optimize for visual search is by creating a photo catalog of your products and services. You want to add metadata to each image to ensure that search engines sort it out correctly. For example, a photo of a chrome mini-fridge would have an alt-text like “travel-sized chrome mini-fridge.” Taking these steps will go a long way in helping your brand get ahead of fast-changing paid search trends.

Utilize Re-Marketing In A Personalized Way

Re-Marketing is most commonly used on users once they have left your site. Re-Marketing ads tend to be very personalized which makes them an effective marketing strategy. When you show people ads for things they’ve shopped for before, they tend to have high conversion rates.

When it comes to re-marketing, it all comes down to keeping your brand in the minds of people. It’s no longer just about wooing people who aren’t ready to buy yet. It now mainly comes down to knowing where your prospects are at in the buying cycle. After that, you would create targeted, personalized ads based on where they’re at which helps them decide to convert.

Digging deep to understand your audience goes a long way in helping convert people into paying customers.

Top-Notch PPC Strategies Help Grow Your Brand For The Better

Without question, the online landscape is changing as are the online search habits of consumers. That’s why you need top-notch PPC tips like these to help you get ahead of the game. In the end, you’ll attract the right people to your website and gain loyal, paying customers. Following these steps will no doubt help your brand achieve new heights.

So what are you waiting for? Make PPC marketing a part of your online marketing strategy. It’ll help transform your brand into that next great thing and be a top leader in this fast-changing online world.

What do you feel will help grow your online presence and get people to convert into paying customers in 2021? What other PPC tips do you feel are key in helping your brand succeed? Questions? Comments? Please feel free to share this blog post and share your thoughts below.

Four Keys To Having A Great Mobile User Experience

How often are you on your mobile devices? More than likely, you use it often. In fact, 66% of Americans are on their phones 160 times per day according to a recent survey. Mobile devices are pretty much part of our lives. We buy things, check our social media accounts and keep in touch with others via our mobile devices. With that being said, it is crucial for brands of all sizes to provide your online users with a great mobile user experience (UX). This will make an impact on whether your target customers will go with you or with your competitors. In this blog post, we will be discussing four keys to providing your users with a great mobile UX.

Page Speed Is A Must

One of the most crucial things for users to have a great UX is for pages to be up to speed. Each second makes a huge difference on whether a consumer buys goods from you or from someone else. In fact, 46% of users strongly dislike having to wait for pages is what they dislike the most about mobile search. Let’s put it this way. Every second more that it takes to load a web page, your conversion rate drops and your bounce rate rises. That right there is money and customers walking out on your brand. That being said, there is a way to fix this. A great tool to check your page speed is GTmetrix. It checks how your page performs, why it might be slow and gives you steps on how to improve your site speed. Having your page up to speed is crucial for bringing in customers and good for your SEO.

Image Size Matters

When it comes to image size, it is important to have an image that works best for your site. What that means is to have an image that helps describe what your content is about while ensuring that your site is up to speed. It can be tempting to put up a big image on your website. At the end of the day, it can slow down your page and therefore harm your site experience. As SquareSpace recommends, use images that are between 1500 to 2500 pixels wide. You also don’t want the pixels to be too small or it may be too blurry to see. You also want to use image files that are less than 500 KB. By working to ensure appropriate image size, your site experience will be enjoyable for your site visitors.

Responsive Design For A Great User Experience Across All Devices

The best user experience is one that exists across all devices whether it be a desktop, mobile, or tablet. Responsive Design is a method in designing your website in a way that scales your content automatically to match the screen size of your device. This helps your users avoid having to pinch their screen in order to view your site content. With responsive design, you won’t have to design multiple versions of your site. You’ll save yourself work by only designing one website that scales automatically to match the device being used. With responsive design, you’ll be providing your site visitors with a pleasant UX that helps attract your ideal customers.

Keep Site Organization Simple

When it comes to the layout of your website, you want to make it simple for your users to navigate. You never want to use too many words or images to get your point across. When it comes to site navigation, it is advised that you use icons like the phone symbol or the triple bar menu symbol. This will show viewers that your site is organized and optimized for mobile. The same could be said when it comes to videos and graphics. As mentioned earlier about image size, bigger is not always better. You want images that are of reasonable size and want video content to be of reasonable bandwidth. That way, your site will be up to speed and of top quality. In conclusion, you want to ensure that your contact info and location are easy to find. Countless brands miss these smallest of details that cost them big time. In this case, you want to be transparent and accessible to users. The more accessible and organized you are, the better the UX will be.

A Great Mobile User Experience Brings Happy Customers

With people on their mobile devices now more than ever, providing them with a great UX is a must. You need an up to speed website that is organized across all devices in order to have quality UX. These four keys are essential to helping users find what they’re looking for in the easiest of ways. As Jacob Nielson once said, “User experience encompasses all aspects of the end user’s interaction with the company, its services, and its products.” A great UX on your website is what makes a great first impression with your online users. When you provide them a quality mobile experience, you’ll make them happy and they’ll turn into your loyal customers.

What do you feel is also essential in ensuring an excellent mobile user experience? Questions? Comments? Feel free to share this blog post & share your thoughts below.

Aaron’s Top Six Digital Marketing Trends For 2020

Two months have passed and already 2020 has been a year of big time events . That is especially true when it comes to the Digital Marketing industry. Already we’ve seen some impactful changes that affect how we reach our target audience. What may work yesterday may not work today so Digital Marketers should definitely take notice and prepare to adjust to changes. After all, the Digital Marketing industry is all about constant change and constant adjustments to your online outreach strategies. When it comes to trends, there have been many but there are six Digital Marketing trends that we as Digital Marketers should take notice of. Let’s look at these, shall we? 😉

Influencer Marketing On The Rise

In recent years, we have seen the rise of Influencer Marketing in a big way in comparison to corporate advertising. People these days look for brands that are authentic and relate to them in a more personalized manner. In fact, 63 percent of consumers trust the opinions of influencers than they do corporate advertising that makes it about the brand. When it comes to reaching out to influencers, it is important to reach out to those who would be more relatable to your brand as opposed to focusing on macro-influencers endorsements. If you’re a smaller business, definitely consider micro-influencers as your go to when it comes to reaching your ideal consumer.

Dark Social Becoming The New Thing

Dark Social is absolutely becoming another rising trend in this day in age and no, there’s not gonna be a Zombie Apocalypse coming to take over the world. Dark Social is a term used to describe website referrals that go through private social media platforms that aren’t trackable by analytics programs. According to a survey of 3000 US and UK internet users, dark social apps are used by 63 percent of people to share content. Both younger and older generations have been using Dark Social in increasing numbers so it is important for brands to join in on the fun and to do so in an authentic manner. For more information about how to properly use Dark Social, I welcome you all to view my latest article here.

Mobile Friendly Sites Are A Must

With people on the go these days, it has become increasingly important for businesses to ensure that their websites are up-to-date and up-to-speed on both desktops and mobile devices. People want great user experience on websites and want it fast. If your website takes too long to load, your potential customers will leave you for your competition and your page ranking in the search engines would likely drop. In fact, your bounce rate will go up the longer your website takes to load as witnessed in this study by section.io. Online users are likely to visit a lot more pages when page load time is 2 seconds compared to 8 seconds. Definitely work to have your sites up to speed while also ensuring that your website is mobile-friendly either by responsive design or adaptive design.

Voice Search Is Becoming Increasingly Important

Without a doubt, today’s consumers are looking for newer and more convenient ways to search for what they’re looking for. They especially would enjoy not having to type in their search or even leaving their couch to order something. With this in mind, it is no surprise that Voice Search has become increasingly important. In fact, half of all searches will be via voice by this year with 52 percent of people keeping their voice-activated speakers in their living room. [E] This is important for people of all age groups so it has become important for brands to include voice search in their Digital Marketing strategies going forward. By doing that, they’ll be ahead of the game in meeting the increasing demands of today’s consumers.

Reputation Management Is A Must

When it comes to Reputation Management, let me just say that this is a big deal in today’s online world. With people increasingly viewing online reviews as a big factor in their purchasing decisions, brands must look to build trust with their target audience. One of the biggest ways to do that is to respond to comments and reviews whether they are good or bad. In fact, 78% of people agreed that brands who respond to reviews and comments made them believe that they care about them. Brands both big and small should always work to respond to comments and reviews in a way that shows that you’re committed to the needs of the customer while making them feel at home. After all, that’s how you build and maintain relationships with your ideal consumers.

Personalization

Last but certainly not least when it comes to my Top 6 Digital Marketing trends to keep an eye out in 2020 is personalization. In this day in age, people prefer brands who are authentic and relate to them. In fact, 80% of online consumers are more willing to do business with brands who provide them a more personalized experience. Whether you’re starting an Email Marketing campaign or developing your online content, it is always important to keep these stats in mind when it comes to tailoring your content in order to meet the individual needs of the consumer. Don’t be afraid to share your story to your audience. People love stories that speak their mind and makes them feel that they relate to your brand. Your content should focus more on others and not just about your brand. That’s how you compete and that’s how you Win Big in today’s competitive online world.

Change Happens For The Better

There’s no doubt that the preferences of consumers have changed and when that happens, so will the way we as Digital Marketers reach out to those consumers. It is crucial to always be on top of online trends and be flexible to change in order to meet the demands of today’s online consumers. In today’s fast-changing online world, authenticity is the name of the game when it comes to attracting and retaining your ideal online consumers. Authenticity is how you compete in today’s online world and it is how you become that next big thing. By keeping these six big Digital Marketing trends in mind, you’ll be able to achieve great successes in attracting those valuable consumers and Win Big in today’s competitive online world.

What other Digital Marketing trends should we keep in mind in today’s online world? What role does authenticity play in the success of brands? Questions? Comments? Feel free to share this article & don’t be afraid to share your thoughts below.