Google reports a whopping 63,000 searches every single second and more than half of consumers search for businesses from their smartphone. These staggering statistics make it pretty clear: your online, full-service marketing strategy needs to be on-point. What does that mean exactly? Let’s take a look at the best practices and the all-too-common mistakes.
The Best: Premium SEO, Content Marketing, and User-Friendly Interfaces
Although tackling search engine optimization and pay-per-click management (or SEO and PPC management), custom web designs, and content creation may seem daunting, there is some good news: Google is relatively open about its algorithms and what practices can help or hurt you.
First of all, Google acknowledges that SEO works. There is an algorithm and there are certain metrics and keywords Google is looking for. But how exactly is Google finding and ranking pages?
“For optimal rendering and indexing, always allow Googlebot access to the JavaScript, CSS, and image files used by your website. If your site’s robots.txt file disallows crawling of these assets, it directly harms how well our algorithms render and index your content,” Google confirms.
Similarly, Google recommends naming each individual page of your website and avoiding generic, throwaway terms like “Untitled” or “Page 1.”
In terms of these pages, Google always wants you to keep users in mind. The best pages are user-friendly. Plain and simple. Keep heading sizes consistent. Create URLs with the title and subject of content within the URL. Make sure your website looks good on a desktop, iPad, and mobile phone. Avoid walls of text and leave plenty of white space to help keep things engaging and readable.
Another important cornerstone is quality content.
“Organic or word-of-mouth buzz is what helps build your site’s reputation with both users and Google, and it rarely comes without quality content,” according to Google.
Know your audience and target them. Provide information that is genuinely useful and interesting. Use Google’s Keyword Planner to determine relevant keywords, and weave in keywords organically. Customers shouldn’t even realize you’re using them!
The Most Common Marketing Mistakes
Yes, when it comes to full-service marketing, there is absolutely a right way to do it and a wrong way to do it.
Keyword stuffing is one example of bad SEO. The practice involves using keywords in a random list or stuffing content so full of keywords it becomes obvious. Google can recognize when a keyword is used too many times on a page or post and will rank them lower for it.
Similarly, small things like grammar and spelling go a long way. Google ranks pages rife with typos and spelling errors much lower than their spell-checked counterparts.
Companies should also be careful when using social media. While it is important to engage customers and most customers expect a strong social media presence, you should always have social media campaigns and decisions reviewed by at least two people and avoid controversial topics.
Soar to the top of the search rankings with full-service marketing that focuses on high-quality, useful, and user-friendly content. Avoid typos and using too many keywords to keep rankings high, and definitely avoid slip-of-the-tongue ad copy and poorly vetted social media marketing.
