by Marianna Muscat | Jul 20, 2020 | SEO
SEO is a key part of every digital marketing strategy and campaign. If you want to become an SEO professional, you need to understand not only search engine optimisation (SEO), but also the services that complement SEO such as social media marketing and content marketing.
What is Search Engine Optimization (SEO)?
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is necessary for potential customers to find you on the internet and to be considered ‘relevant’ by major search engines such as Google. SEO requires keyword research, keyword placement and high-quality, engaging website content. Local search, through which customers in your local area can find you – as well as Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising – also form part of SEO.
What skills does an SEO professional need?
There are eight top skills every SEO professional needs:
- Critical thinking to understand the steps required towards a solution.
- The ability to do keyword research and write content.
- Technical and programming knowledge to understand what the developer is thinking.
- Social skills to get along with others, build relationships and learn new things.
- Knowledge of Adobe or Google Analytics to pull data and a basic understanding of business KPIs.
- Be good with Excel to manipulate data for the insights you need.
- Adaptability, motivation and drive to put the client first and build revenue.
- A sense of humour to not let the fast pace of the industry get you down.
What makes social media marketing and content marketing important to SEO?
High-quality, engaging content on websites and social media platforms, done regularly, results in search engines recognising these pages as a valuable content-rich site. By optimising this content with relevant keywords, organic (free) focused traffic will be driven to the specific website or social media pages. “
A social media marketing strategy must be well-thought-out and be accompanied by conscious online reputation management. Contact us today to find out how WSI OMS can help your South African business with SEO.
by Marianna Muscat | Jul 15, 2020 | Social Media Marketing, Digital Media Marketing, PPC, SEO
Whether you’re a small business owner or a digital marketer working with a limited budget, you’re most likely trying to get the most value for your money when it comes to online marketing tools. Luckily, there are some great tools available to help you with most of your marketing activities, and many of them are free or incredibly affordable.
Online tools that every business owner or digital marketer should know of:
SEO Tools
SEO Book Tools
The latest tools from SEO Book will provide you with all the benefits of the expertise from across the marketplace. The site offers training courses, as well as audio and video content on the latest updates within the SEO marketplace. It also lists the latest tools for growing companies.
SmallSEOTools
Whether you’re looking to check the authority of a particular domain, conduct a reverse image search for your SEO campaign or check Alexa rankings, the options available through SmallSEOTools.com will provide the ideal resource.
SEOToolSet
SEOToolSet focuses on the in-depth data that your SEO campaigns need to thrive. Tools include the latest reporting options to gain insight on elements such as link analysis and domain indexing. The data revealed by these tools can help keep your firm moving forward toward its SEO objectives and driving efficiency within your campaigns.
Raven Tools
From finding and fixing errors within your SEO campaigns to getting rankings from Google, the options within Raven’s tools will keep your campaigns moving successfully forward. Raven’s standalone site-auditor is a great tool to quickly find and eliminate SEO flaws that could otherwise see your content penalised within the rankings.
WebCEO
WebCEO’s suite of SEO tools will provide you with enterprise-level features for comprehensive SEO campaign management. The company also offers tools for link detoxing and local SEO campaign management to keep your company connected to your local audiences.
Tools for content marketing
Outbrain
Outbrain helps optimise your content, amplify content reach, and ensures it connects with relevant audiences across your marketplace. You’ll achieve higher engagement across your campaigns and thereby maximise revenue growth over the long-term.
Curata
Curata is the ideal tool for a streamlined content production and analysis process. The solution helps you to drive content ideation while giving you clear data on the types of content most valuable to your qualified audiences. It also allows you to build a predictable content supply chain that takes pieces from the draft stage through to analysis and their use within the conversion optimisation process.
Ahrefs Content Explorer
Through the Ahrefs Content Explorer, you can learn the most popular content on any topic. The tool allows you to use filters and sort information via language, traffic, backlinks, and word count among other metrics so that you can hone in on the type of content that will best engage your high-value audience members.
Pay Per Click Tools
Spyfu
Gaining insight into how your competitors are using keywords within their PPC campaigns can help give you the advantage in the marketplace. Spyfu puts the latest market research at your disposal and keeps your team moving towards their ROI objectives within their PPC campaigns.
Unbounce
Getting engagement through your landing pages should ensure that your company achieves a swift ROI from invested marketing funds. Unbounce gives you the tools to build refined landing pages that continually deliver effective performance for your organisation.
iSpionage
Using iSpionage, you can begin to learn more about your competitors and the offers they’re presenting. The data delivered through the tool can help your team improve your offers and ensure a lasting return on investment for your campaign funds. Components such as iSpionage Campaign Watch give you clear insight on competitor actions, highlighting your competitors across both the desktop and mobile verticals.
SEMRush
Having access to a trusted data source for your PPC campaign can ensure your brand is continually moving forward. SEMrush combines a full range of campaign management components, such as search engine position tracking, competitive intelligence and backlink audits and analytics to ensure a constant flow of actionable data on campaign performance.
Tools for Social Media
Hootsuite
Helping companies manage their multiple social media platforms and providing them with clear data on campaign performance, Hootsuite is the market’s most trusted product for effective social media management. The solution also helps to track mentions to help growing brands retain control of their company’s reputation.
SproutSocial
SproutSocial helps brands plan, organise, and rollout content that engages a qualified audience and begins important conversations within the social media platforms. The system provides companies with qualitative data regarding their social media marketing performance to help them make more effective decisions when rolling out new content.
MeetEdgar
MeetEdgar is the social media content scheduling tool for the proactive marketing team. The system works to catalogue the best performing social media updates by category and then automatically shares the content with your audience based on when it’s most likely to gain the most traction online.
Tools for website analysis
SEO Analyzer
The SEO Analyzer from Neil Patel will provide you with concrete information about your SEO performance and how to improve your performance over time. The reports offered through the Analyser help pinpoint errors within your site’s SEO and highlight how to make quick, effective changes to support improved SEO performance.
Woorank
Woorank is ideal if you’ve got a number of pages to check. Work through content issues and analyse thousands of pages in minutes to review technical SEO elements and ensure every component is managed with precision.
SEO Optimer
SEO Optimer helps your team improve the on-page elements within your site. The tool gives you clear information on site performance and on how the natural elements on your site can be used to boost the site’s rankings in search.
Google Webmaster Tools
Google Webmaster Tools is your set of optimisation tools for effective management and maintenance of your site. Within the Webmaster Tools, you’ll discover all the components you need to make fast, effective decisions on how to improve the performance of your site. You can analyse your clicks and determine their source, discover more about how your site performs with specific audiences, and learn which content is most popular.
Varvy
Varvy can help you improve both the speed and functionality of your site for both mobile and desktop audiences. The tool helps eliminate elements that negatively impact site performance and provides important information about the problems within your current site setup.
Each of these tools provides you with a range of benefits, but they can take some time to master. If you’re interested in learning more about any of these online tools, talk to one of our digital marketers, or contact us for help with your digital marketing strategy.
by Marianna Muscat | Jul 10, 2020 | E-mail Marketing
A successful email marketing campaign gets recipients to respond to your call-to-action by clicking the provided link and following your action prompts which may include signing up for a mailing list, making a purchase or downloading content from your website. The best way to gauge the performance of your email marketing campaign is to track relevant metrics so you can improve your strategy.
The key performance indicators (KPIs) in your email marketing that you should be tracking:
Emails Open Rate
Open rate indicates how many recipients opened the email because they were interested enough in the content to read all or some of the email. To improve the open rate, make sure your sender name is credible, the subject line stands out, and the emails are sent at the optimum time and day.
Click-through Rate
Click-through rate indicates how many people clicked on links in your email, are engaging with the content and want to learn more about your brand, products or services. To improve the click-through rate, make the email mobile friendly and keep the message simple with a clear call to action.
Unsubscribe/Marked As Spam/ Complaints
Unsubscribe/Spam Complaint Rate indicates what is not working with your email campaign. You do not want your email marketing campaign to irritate current or potential clients. To improve this rate, relook content, sending frequency and make it easy to unsubscribe.
Conversion Rate
The conversion rate is the most critical email marketing KPI as it indicates how many recipients completed the desired action after opening the email, whether making a purchase, filling out a form or signing up for an event. This rate directly impacts your return on investment (ROI).
For help with your marketing automation and creating a consistent content marketing plan that will improve your return on investment, contact WSIOMS. We’ll help you to create email marketing campaigns that result in conversions and brand loyalty.
by Marianna Muscat | Jul 6, 2020 | Online Marketing
Online marketing, otherwise known as digital marketing, is an absolute requirement for any business today. Partnering with a digital marketing agency can help your business keep up with the rapid pace at which digital marketing techniques and tools change. Here are new online marketing strategies you might not know about.
Consumer privacy
Consumers want to know the data they share with your business is safe. Privacy and security breaches by global brands such as Facebook and Google mean companies must be even more committed to improving and protecting their systems to ensure consumer privacy. Marketers need to work with colleagues to mitigate the potential impact of security breaches and reassure customers, through continued communication, that their data is indeed safe.
Conversational marketing
Conversational marketing brings together the swift consumer adoption of smart speakers, innovation in search query processing, conversational interfaces and messaging. As many consumers use mobile messaging for increasingly complex conversations, conversational marketing can deal with routine enquiries. Partner with customer experience experts to learn if this kind of technology will alleviate customer frustrations.
Real-time marketing
Real-time marketing offers real competitive advantages as marketers combine behavioural analytics and marketing automation to ensure customers see the right message at the right time. Build speed and rapid response into the entire consumer lifecycle to streamline the buyer journey and get buyers to purchase quickly.
Know Your Customer (KYC)
There seems to be a decrease in the effectiveness of traditional customer identification methods such as cookies for tracking, making media return on investment (ROI) determination more difficult. Emerging technologies are however being developed to improve security, reduce fraud and improve insight about customers across multiple devices.
The digital marketing services offered by WSI OMS include website design, social media marketing, email marketing, Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), content marketing and even online reputation management. Our focus is on providing valuable, cutting-edge and measurable digital marketing solutions. Contact us today to improve the digital marketing of your business.
by Marianna Muscat | Jun 24, 2020 | Digital Media Marketing
Staying afloat during the global COVID-19 crises can be daunting for businesses. Still, with the ability to access the internet and a few key digital marketing trends, business owners can minimise the impact of COVID-19 and future-proof their operations.
Digital marketing trends: Tips on shifting your focus during COVID-19
Create opportunities to interact
With a lot of people spending more time at home and the entire business world slowing down (if not stopping entirely for specific industries), your audience may have more time to consume your content, but only if it’s produced correctly. You need to shift your focus to creating content that enables your audience to interact with your business and the content itself.
Create opportunities for your audience to provide feedback through polls and quizzes, make your product posts shoppable, introduce video messages to your feeds and make use of AR/VR technology to stand out from the competition. Keep an eye on incoming engagement so you can reply in time to build your reputation among consumers. If you provide shoppable posts, give your customers a clear indication of what they can expect in terms of production and delivery timelines (before they hit the “checkout” button).
Use SEO smartly
The rapidly changing environment is creating a lot of change in SEO trends. Although this might be hard for brands that usually rank well, it is good news for brands that offer products and services which were typically reserved for smaller markets. No one could predict the upswing in searches for toilet paper and face masks a year ago, but good digital marketers can innovate and use SEO smartly to come out on top of the SERP.
The new favourite shopping destination: Social media
While addressing trends, we cannot forget about the uptake in online shopping. Due to the restriction of movement (and rules for gathering), businesses are offering services and products online. If you have a product-based business, or you can provide your services online, now is an excellent opportunity to sell on social media.
Investigate the different platforms and options for selling online, and engage your audience where they are hanging out on social media. It is vital to remember that good social media marketing means more than pushing your products onto a social media platform. You’ll need to understand how people search for and shop on social media.
Addressing Google Ads
In 2019, Google announced improvements in bidding goals to help marketers reach to improve their performance. While these improvements helped to optimise ad bids and improve conversion, some industries are now seeing a decline in their pay per click results. It is essential to keep a close eye on your Google Ads performance and make strategic changes to ensure that your budget is spent in the most effective way possible.
For help with your digital marketing efforts, including pay per click campaigns, and social selling strategy, contact WSI for more information.
