To be completely honest, not much changes for digital marketing in the New Year. Businesses that are on top of their game make valuable changes throughout the year, and those that don’t tend to always be left behind.
This year is no different. If you happen to be one of the businesses left behind by an everchanging digital marketing landscape, though, don’t feel bad. Just as billions of people make personal resolutions, you can make a professional resolution to fix your failing digital marketing strategy in 2015.
The following issues are only a sample of things that could be wrong with your SEO and social media strategy, but are easily five of the most important. Stop making excuses and make these changes happen now!
Jumping from Trend to Trend Too Quickly
We all love new things. They keep our work and lives exciting, and present new challenges to overcome.
Trends, on the other hand, can be both a godsend and a curse. Following one could lead you down a path to pure gold, or it could lead you to a dead end.
In digital marketing, trends often lead businesses to drop working strategies for untested ideas.
Solution
Following digital marketing trends will keep you up to date on what the industry’s top companies are doing, but don’t jump the gun when following in the footsteps of others. What works for one company may not work for yours–just as what works for you may not work for your competition.
Work in new ideas slowly–perhaps testing it on fresh sites or clients–while sticking to the fundamentals to ensure consistent growth.
Not Consistently Creating New Content
Creating content is hard work, but it’s extremely simple to implement and equally effective. Not creating content, however, can lead to stagnant or slipping rankings.
Solution
Make this a part of someone’s job if you’re a really small business, hire a firm that specializes in content to get consistently great work if you’re a medium-size business, or hire a full-time content manager if your business has grown to require someone in-house.
It’s not going to be a cheap job if you want the work done right, but any business owner who has experienced the power of content for SEO will attest that it’s worth it.
Limited Facebook Engagement
With the death of organic reach, many businesses are finding it tough to see the value in Facebook marketing. Unfortunately, the businesses that have given up are missing out on great results that come from Facebook’s new “pay to play” strategy. More for us, I guess!
Solution
Apply ads and create a content strategy specifically for Facebook. Reply to comments and spark conversations with both new and old customers.
With engaging content, you’ll not only get your money’s worth from ad spend, your new visitors will share your posts and help you grow your organic reach more than was ever possible in the past.
Lack of Inbound Links
By nature, most small businesses don’t get a lot of natural links. Without a PR or dedicated marketing department, it’s not likely that you’re generating enough buzz to gain links without actively seeking opportunities.
Solution
Use various linkbuilding techniques to find opportunities to grow your inbound link profile and boost rankings. Whether you or one your managers becomes a source of information for reporters, you reach out to sites with broken links, or you develop a unique content marketing strategy, think of links as stepping stones to higher rankings.
Keyword Stuffing
Despite the death knell ringing for years, many businesses (and bad SEO companies) use keyword stuffing in an attempt to trick Google into giving low quality content a high ranking for specific keywords.
Solution
Focus on contextually relevant keywords used naturally in a tier-type system. Brian Dean gives a great explanation of this system in a video for QuickSprout, which includes using Google’s Keyword Planner Tool to find longtail keywords with less competition to target.