Remember when you could copy a marketer’s advice across the board and get the expected result? Compared to today’s multi-channel marketing exploits, it didn’t take much online marketing to make a difference back in the days of just-begun Internet marketing. Change is one of the reasons the job of an SEO has become so expansive, and it’s also one of the many reasons why your marketing strategy should be expansive as well. If you aren’t trying to diversify your marketing strategy, you may be missing out on prime opportunity.
Why?
Simply put, silver bullet marketing solutions no longer exist, if they ever did. Gone are the days of one-size-fits-all, carbon copy/paste sites and services that produce the same marketing results for many companies. There are simply too many good players in the game regardless of the product or service. Of course, companies use a plethora of marketing techniques that can include PPC, SEO, online and offline marketing, and even trade shows. Whatever the technique, businesses can never forget that an effective marketing strategy has to be about winning online as well.
Diversify To Remain Competitive
A big marketing mistake that companies make is going all out on a marketing channel that seems to work. When the channel fails, they have little to fall back on. Companies, to remain competitive, should diversify their marketing strategy and establish other channels of SERP estate. These alternative channels can include local listings, explainer videos, images, Google Plus page, Google Places, Google Maps, and other marketing ideas that link to how people shop online with their mobile devices.
On page content is critical as ever. Make sure your company continually produces a fresh, relevant supply of content that speaks to all of your social media venues. In the Western Hemisphere, Google owns the information highway. Baidu and Yandex own the Eastern Hemisphere.
The Psychology of Search
Search engine optimization is also about the psychology of search. Look at the various parts of any SEO and marketing campaign:
- Marketers must know their customers’ intent and be able to identify all the important pain points. Why are they searching for your product? What problem does your product or service solve? How do you reach out to your customers? Does a customer-centric or a product-centric marketing campaign make more sense?
- SEO has evolved to the point where it looks at the user-experience from a human perspective. Beyond what words to use (mentioned below), how can you best optimize a site for the audience? In creating optimized content, which types of content (videos, blogs, infographics, etc.) will perform best?
- Website design should appeal to how people think. When people arrive, a website should address their needs. For example, it should be easy to find important areas on the site, such as contact, cart and shipping policies.
- Keywords can have multiple meanings, and a search result now produces information that addresses how a person searches. There may also be several answers for each keyword search. Google’s search engine will also move the most popular searches up in SERPS. If more people look at videos, Google tends to show more video-results compared to news articles.
Diversifying one’s marketing strategy also allows for fresh, new content. It is an excellent way to draw in the attention of your target audiences. Diversifying marketing strategies also enables additional link building efforts. Inbound links remain one of the top drivers of SEO and ranking.
Prepare for Future Marketing Changes
Online technologies and future businesses will change the landscape each year. It will get harder for you to rank in the SERPs, and easier for you to rank. You’ll get better results from Instagram in one quarter, but under perform in another. In short, online marketing is fluid, with no “set-it-and-forget-it” option in sight.
One of the greatest ways to prepare for this change is make good use of a diverse set of digital marketing channels and tools. Don’t allow yourself to get pigeon-holed into a single marketing channel. If you carefully research and diversify your marketing strategy, you stand to achieve a much better return.