2) Nike Air Jordan, 1985

3) Adidas, 2012

4) Durex, 2016

5) Pepsi, 2016

6) British Airways, 2007

7) M&M, 2013

8) Heineken, 2009

9) McDonalds, 2017

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There are so many different, conflicting opinions about content marketing out there. Everyone has a different opinion and it can leave you wondering which strategy is best for your brand. Unlike recruiting or building a product, there aren’t hard and fast rules or guidelines when building a content marketing strategy.

However, having one is often not enough. What it takes is having the right kind of strategy for the right kind of goal you have set up for your business.

Let’s look at some ideas for making your content marketing strategy work for you.

Get Some Clarity

Most companies want their content marketing to drive sales or conversions. However, the best content marketing strategies don’t start there. They start with the top of the funnel (TOFU) and work their way down.

A TOFU strategy is most effective when your company is new or you are introducing a new product or service. The goal is to build brand awareness, so people recognize you and your company when they are ready to buy a product or service like yours.

The most common type of middle-of-the-funnel (MOFU) content is a blog post or an article that gives someone useful information or advice related to a topic your target audience cares about. Think about the questions people ask about your area of expertise and write articles that give them answers.

Your bottom-of-the-funnel (BOFU) content should focus on making sales and conversions. This is the time to become very direct in what you tell your readers, viewers, and listeners.

Every piece of content you create should have a clear objective in mind. Do you want to generate leads, create brand awareness, or make a sale?

One way to do this is by creating content for different areas of the funnel —TOFU for brand awareness and BOFU for leads and sales.

You can also segment your ideal customers into personas. Create different content for each persona depending on where they are in the buyer’s journey.

Creating content without a purpose is a surefire way to waste time and money on content that doesn’t help your business grow.

To start building your content strategy, answer these questions:

• What problem does your target customer have? How can you solve it with your content?
• What stage of the buyer’s journey is your target customer at?
• What types of content do they enjoy consuming?

Measure And Optimize, All The Way

How can you tell if your content marketing strategy is working?

The best way is to measure your content marketing success against your objectives. What were you hoping to achieve? For example, did you want more traffic to your website, or to build awareness of a new product or service?

If you need help with your measurements and metrics, here are some key ones:

• Time spent creating content vs. output (in terms of leads, revenue, etc.)
• Overheads of producing the content (e.g., salaries of writers) vs. output (again, in terms of leads and revenue)
• Number of posts compared with the number of leads generated
• Cost per lead — divide marketing costs by the number of leads generated to get this figure

Content marketing is a long-term strategy — it’s not just about making sales today. It’s about building your brand, establishing authority, and providing value to your customers.

When you’re setting goals for your content marketing, remember that you’re trying to create an ongoing relationship with a customer. You want them to keep coming back for more information and advice from you. That may take several interactions — so don’t expect a single blog post or infographic to get people calling you tomorrow.

Content marketing can pay off in two ways: You can either optimize for lower overheads (fewer staff hours spent creating content), or for higher output (more leads, more conversions).

By lowering overheads you will be able to produce more content with the same budget. And that’s especially important if your margins are already tight and you can’t afford to increase your budget.

If you have a budget to spare, optimize for greater output as well. The way to do this is to test different platforms and pieces of content. You could use a tool like BuzzSumo to see where similar content has performed best in the past.

Let’s say that you want to lower overheads.

You can do so by choosing the following:

Use a paid tool to do the heavy lifting — Yes, I know that Google Analytics is free, but it takes a lot of work to understand it fully. Paid tools like KISSmetrics and Mixpanel are easier to use and usually offer more data than Google Analytics.

Outsource your content production — while you may be an industry expert, you may not always be the best writer. Professional content writing services can help flesh out your content ideas into engaging content that delivers results. .

Know Your Content’s Place

As you create your content marketing strategy, you should know that each piece of content has a place in the customer journey.

Some articles are meant to introduce consumers to your brand; others are designed to convert them into email subscribers or paying customers.

Before you create any content, identify where it will fit in the process, then make sure the piece actually helps move your audience along.

As you create content, it’s important to know how it connects with the rest of your site.

For example, if you are an eCommerce store selling skin products, and your marketing plan should be about communicating the benefits of sunscreen. Your landing page should be your sunscreen listing page (or particular product), not a generic product listing page.

You also need to consider how different pieces of content interrelate.

When one article leads into another, or when one article is written as a follow-up to another, the two pieces must seamlessly continue each other’s storylines and use similar tones and messages.

In terms of keyword research and SEO optimization, remember that you may want to break out individual articles into separate blog posts or web pages. This allows you to target different keywords with different posts and focus on specific topics with more depth than would be possible on one page.

Repurposing Is The Key

The goal of content marketing is not just to build a brand. It’s also to get potential customers excited enough to become paying customers. 

To do that, you need to speak their language. You need to address their issues and challenges with highly specific content that they can relate to.

To that end, a solid content marketing strategy should go beyond just your blog. While it’s a great place to start, there are plenty of other ways to create valuable content that your customers will enjoy — and share.

One way to reduce overheads and increase ROI is by repurposing your content into multiple formats — ebooks, blogs, Instagram posts, and so on. For example, an ebook could be split into a series of blog posts, or recorded in an interview format for a podcast or webinar.

That’s the theory anyway. The practice can be more challenging. It takes time and effort to create high-quality content in the first place — even more so when you want that same content tailored for different formats and platforms. 

But cleverly repackaging your existing content is an effective way of creating new assets without spending extra money on creating something completely new.

Track, Fix, And Repeat

Content marketing is a long-term strategy. It’s not just about creating a blog or eBook, sharing it, and hoping it does well. You need to be constantly monitoring and analyzing the results.

Figure out your goals for each piece of content you create. Are you trying to boost organic traffic? Social shares? Lead generation? Nail down what you want the content to do, then identify key performance indicators (KPIs) that will help measure whether or not it’s achieving those goals.

Track these KPIs carefully over time using analytics tools like Google Analytics and social media dashboards. Create an editorial calendar that includes important data points on traffic, engagement, conversions, and so on. These are things you’ll want to review regularly to see what is resonating with your audience and what isn’t.

Once you’ve collected this data, identify the factors that have contributed most to the success or failure of each project, and use that information to inform future projects. If one type of format seems to outperform others consistently, ramp up your efforts in that area. If one month of content performed particularly poorly, look for opportunities for improvement in your process.

The post How to make your content marketing strategy work for you appeared first on MintTwist.

From wide-ranging legislations such as the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) in Europe, the CCPA (California Consumer Privacy Act) or China’s recent PIPL (Personal Information Protection Law), to Apple’s controversial iOS 14 update and Google’s doubling down of removing third-party cookies.

Restrictions on digital data practices are being introduced by both government and private entities at an increasingly fast rate.

iOS 14 advertising impact

In the final quarter of 2020, Apple introduced an industry-changing feature, as part of its iOS 14 operating system update, called App Tracking Transparency (ATT). This feature requires user permission for advertisers to track user activity outside the app via IDFA’s (Identifier for Advertisers). The IDFA is a persistent ID commonly used by advertisers to track and target users on iOS devices with personalised advertising and targeted recommendations. Previously, IDFA’s were opt-in by default. Following iOS 14, users must now explicitly grant IDFA permissions, with data suggesting as many as 96% of  iPhone users in the U.S. are choosing to opt-out of cross-application data tracking. Disruption from this has resulted in reported conversion data being delayed by up to 72 hours within the platform, and in some cases, not registering at all.

Organisations with a strong reliance on conversion tracking data, such as Facebook, have audibly condemned the changes citing significant fallout to advertisers and small businesses alike.

Another privacy-preserving feature introduced within iOS 14 was the option for users to disable precise location tracking. If only approximate location sharing is enabled or location services are disabled altogether, then an accurate understanding of the customer journey and precise attribution is harder to build. These restrictions to audience targeting can be slightly mitigated through geotargeting and geofencing – essentially segmenting customers by their proximity to known locations. Broadly speaking, campaign measurement, attribution and media planning have been most heavily affected.

Facebook Conversion API

The iOS 14 privacy update from Apple resulted in unprecedented changes to Facebook’s advertising platform, in particular how conversions are tracked on mobile devices. The data required to track conversion events, optimise ads and retarget users both on and off Facebook’s network is gathered via the ‘Facebook Pixel’. Although a valuable asset, the Facebook Pixel is a browser-side tool – meaning it tracks data through the user’s browser as pixel events. Apple’s transparency feature heavily restricts browser tracking cookies on Apple mobile devices. When considered in combination with the growing presence of in-browser ads and cookie blockers, Apple’s change has significantly reduced data acquisition from this pathway.

The Facebook Conversion API is a server-side tool designed to facilitate personalised advertising while maintaining customer privacy. It tracks web conversion, post-conversion events and page visits, all via the Facebook server.

The Facebook Pixel and Facebook Conversion API have complementary features, meaning they are most effectively used in tandem. Integrating both allows for more accurate total funnel tracking, a better omnichannel understanding of the customer journey and increases the chances of registering a conversion. Facebook also has measures in place to ensure duplicate conversions for the same event are not recorded in a process called ‘deduplication’.

Shifting digital economy in a cookie-less world

Tracking a user’s activity across multiple domains (websites, applications etc.)  is achieved via third-party cookies. Beginning in 2022, Google plans to phase out this type of cookie from its advertising networks and Chrome browser culminating in the complete removal of third-party cookie support by late 2023. These changes, applied in two stages, will most likely be accompanied by some degree of disruption. To minimise this impact, it is important for those of us working in the digital sphere to anticipate how Google will shape its online advertising space.

Google began testing a new set of APIs called ‘The Privacy Sandbox’ in March 2021. In essence, the Sandbox aims to address the privacy concerns of users, while still providing advertisers and business owners with a platform to grow their operations.

In a move away from individual tracking measures (third-party tracking cookies, fingerprinting etc), Google has proposed a new methodology which they have coined the ‘Federated Learning of Cohorts (FLoC). As part of this process, people are clustered based on their browsing patterns and similar interests into anonymized groups or ‘cohorts’. Advertisers can then target these cohorts rather than individuals in a privacy-preserving, ‘safety in numbers’ manner. According to Google’s simulations, FloC can provide ‘at least 95% of the conversions per dollar spent when compared to cookie-based advertising’.

Emphasis on first-party data tracking

Data collected directly by an organisation from an audience is referred to as first-party data. As Google removes support for third-party data sources and further global privacy restrictions are introduced, implementing first-party tracking will become vital. Essentially, this process begins whenever a user visits an online property, with a first-party cookie tracking the user behaviour across related websites and affiliated domains. Any user data consensually submitted also falls into this category.

Our expectation is for more businesses to employ first-party data strategies, with a priority around encouraging consumer registration to websites or services. Many customers will resist novel forms of in-depth data collection. Therefore, minimal data should be requested at first, followed by a progressive profiling strategy to incrementally gather more data as customers continue to engage with the brand.

Google Analytics 4 vs Universal Analytics tracking

Google Analytics 4 (GA4) primarily uses first-party cookies to track data. This contrasts with Universal Analytics (UA) and its reliance on browser cookie data. By leveraging a combination of first-party data, IP-anonymised tracking, advanced machine learning algorithms and statistical modelling techniques, GA4 is privacy-centred by design.

While still compatible with cookie-based strategies, GA4 prioritises the tracking of User IDs. These can be anonymised via Google tag manager into an unidentifiable client ID for each user, yet their behaviour on your site can still be tracked. As a best practice, we recommend setting up a GA4 property to run alongside your primary UA analytics account in order to gain familiarity with the platform before a mandatory shift is needed.

Transparency is key

Cisco’s 2021 Consumer Privacy Survey highlighted increasing customer concerns around data privacy, as well as a lack of confidence in organisations to handle their data ethically and responsibly:

• 76% stated that it was ‘too hard to understand how their data was being used’
• Nearly half of respondents feel they are unable to effectively protect their data
• 32% of respondents have acted in switching companies or providers over their data practices or policies – an increase of 3% from the previous year
• More than 50% of consumers would switch to companies with more transparent data policies

These statistics demonstrate the need for clear communication of user data policies to alleviate concerns and avoid customer churn. A transparent and education-first approach also contributes to a positive brand image and the likelihood of bringing in new customers.

Looking ahead

If 2021 has been characterised by all things ‘privacy’ we don’t believe that 2022 will depart from this trend. Government-led privacy regulation previously has been a multi-year long process. By leveraging their industry dominant platforms, private companies such as Apple and Google now have the means to change online tracking practices in a matter of weeks.

Therefore, our PPC London agency team strongly suggest that resources be invested now in shadowing and forecasting how this new landscape morphs; and, in the interim, we also recommend these practical changes:

• diversification of current ad channels
• exploration of alternative search engines for advertising space
• expansion of paid social media presence on platforms such as Pinterest, Twitter, LinkedIn and Reddit
• investment in creative strategies and performance
• differentiation in a highly saturated advertising landscape with a decreasing reliance on hypertargeting.

In essence – we need to remain knowledgeable about industry privacy trends. Avoid complacency with current website support services and standards, seek out alternative strategies now and embrace the changes that may fundamentally transform the way we work in the future

The post Online privacy: developments and trends appeared first on MintTwist.

The pandemic has continued to change the way we use social as the world has been turning to online means to fulfill a need to connect. More users and increased time spent on social media platforms mean more opportunities for brands, but also greater competition than ever before. An effective social media strategy that utilises the latest social trends has never been more crucial for success.

So, let’s explore some insights from our social media management London team and delve into some of the key social trends to consider for 2022.

Stand out by blending in

Creativity is key

If you’re just commencing social media management for your brand, a common mistake is identically duplicating content from your website or other streams to every social platform you can think of to give your brand the ‘best chance’. Using the same staged imagery, sales tactics, and wordy product descriptions to promote your products and brand generally results in unengaging social content for users, proving it to be an ineffective social strategy.

It’s time to change this. It’s time for brands to be embraced on social media, not just tolerated. But how do you achieve this?

The trend for 2022 is to stand out by blending in. Create content that feels like it belongs on your selected channel and could (or maybe does) come directly from a creator rather than a brand. The thing is human beings don’t ‘like’ being sold to so you should look for ways to educate users on your brand (who you are and what you stand for) and your products (what they do and your USPs) in innovative ways which will capture their attention while getting your message across.

Creating brand content on Twitter

We recently discussed the social storm from Aldi with the #FreeCuthbert campaign. Here Aldi use short, snappy copy, playing with humour to make light of serious news topic which made Twitter history.

Creating brand content on TikTok

@heyestrid

Let’s shave together 🐬 #heyestrid #shaving #routine #vegan

♬ originalljud – heyestrid

@gymshark

Strike! 🎳 @nilewilsonator #Gymshark #StuntChallenge #Bowling

♬ original sound – Gymshark

In the examples above, Estrid uses a home setting and a customer showing how to use their products, top tips, and their thoughts on them (acting as a small testimony). Contrasting to the success on Twitter, they use the full-screen immersive video, adding voice and text overlay rather than the use of traditional images and wordy text descriptions. A styling far more fitting to the TikTok platform, feeling familiar and interesting for viewers. Whereas Gymshark, a brand well-known for encouraging people to push their boundaries and try new things, jump on trending challenges to show their more playful, yet challenge-ready personality. Both examples here have been posted by brands themselves but feel as though they could have been posted directly from a creator, therefore blending into the TikTok feed but helping the brands stand out.

Why aim to blend in?

Platforms themselves are screaming this to brands as they see the mutual benefits. For instance, in 2020, TikTok for Business launched with the clear mantra to advertisers, ‘Don’t make ads. Make TikToks.’ TikTok wants its users to be equally interested in content from brands as they are from their favourite creators.

What’s more, creating this content can often be much more economical for your brand. The need for professional models, top of the range cameras and equipment, and flashy sets and props has dissipated. Instead, grab yourself a phone with a good quality camera, some willing participants, and make use of pretty much whatever locations or props are available to you. Or on Twitter, you just need a witty copywriter to address current news affairs. Connecting the creativity, platform knowledge and best practices, how it connects to your audience’s interests, what value it provides, and how it aligns with your brand, will prove far more valuable than splashing the cash on luxury shoots. This can be much easier said than done.

Here’s how to get started in creating content fit for various social platforms

1. Get to know platforms intuitively – Who uses the platform? What do they use it for? What content is being posted already and what works (think topics, formats, styling, copy, audio, and hashtags)?
2. Choose the right channels for your brand – Choose channels not only that your audiences use but that they use in a way that will move you closer to your goals. Also, consider your creative capacity in terms of both time and resources.
3. Prioritise experimentation – Experimentation is key to any effective social strategy. With the fast changes in trends and new features popping up every month, being open to trying new things and testing the response of your audience is essential to staying ahead of your competitors and keeping your users engaged.

Welcome collaboration

Consider working with creators

If you still find yourself struggling to create content, try this next trend and consider collaborating.

In 2022 will see the new age of creators continuing to emerge as younger users, who have grown up idolizing the traditional influencer, continue to pile onto social platforms pursuing their artistic dreams. According to Hootsuite, “50 million people consider themselves creators.” And today, more kids want to be creators than astronauts, says Lego. That means if you can’t create content yourself, there are sure to be plenty of creators out there more than willing to help…With the right fee that is.

Influencers vs creators

Over the years, the concept of the traditional influencer has gained a negative reputation with some (but definitely not all) taking up shameless, unauthentic collaborations and compiling feeds with countless ads and free gifts when they themselves have no real passion or commitment to the companies they partner with.

Creators, on the other hand, is a new term being coined to describe those who remain authentic and are highly skilled in what they do. They put their heart and soul into creating outstanding content and are essentially art directors in their own right. They will take a brief and add their own interpretation, style, and flair to each post, and will help give you the best chance in driving results for your brand. “Creators are paving the way for a new kind of entrepreneurship where content, community, and commerce are key,” said Harley Finkelstein, president of Shopify.

The rise of micro-influencers

So you want to work with a creator, but who do you choose?

Continuing an influencer trend for 2021, nano and micro-influencers will continue to be the best option for many brands. Micro-influencers are those generally holding a following between 5,000 – 100,000 followers, often committing their page to niche areas.

“Followers” does not mean “community”. Which micro-influencers prove. Working with macro-influencers, sometimes edging into even a celebrity status, will cost you dearly and likely will not bring you the ROI you are after due to the vast scope of their audience and page interests. In contrast, due to their highly tailored content, users follow micro-influencers not because of famous names but because they hold a strong affinity to the content that they share, resulting in a high level of trust, engagement, and consequent high ROIs in well-paired collaborations.

ROI becoming more apparent

Let’s talk money.

For years, proving social ROI has been one of social media managers’ greatest difficulties.  Will this dissipate in 2022?

The rise of social commerce

Currently, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and even Pinterest offer social commerce. However, in the UK the final purchase still must take place on a website.

In-platform purchasing is already available across the US on selected platforms and is expected to be introduced to the UK in 2022. This will mean the entire customer journey can take place on social and, for some, this could eliminate the need to even have a website at all.

This comes with changes in consumer behaviour, greatly accelerated by the global pandemic. Users now use social as a place to discover new brands, thoroughly research and evaluate companies, develop a connection purely through their content output, before scanning through their items for sale on their social shop – often placing them in the buying mindset to be ready to take action and make a purchase. In fact, 74% of consumers rely on social media to guide their purchases, a figure that brands can’t afford to ignore. Post-pandemic, social has become the heart of the shopping experience. Even post-purchase, social can also be used as a customer service tool to help with any order issues and to maintain relationships.

When all of this is already true, in-app purchasing will close the missing link in the customer journey, opening huge opportunities for e-commerce businesses. Brands will be able to create a seamless shopping experience with fewer clicks to checkout, reducing the opportunities to drop-off. Even Amazon has floated the idea of buying HubSpot, a potential sign that they too see social as the future of e-commerce.

Is social commerce right for your brand?

Similarly to our other social trends mentioned, the key to knowing if social commerce is right for your business, and if it’s worth investing your time into, is a rooted understanding of your audience. Do they use the platforms offering social commerce? How trusting are they to place a purchase in-app? How can you optimise your shop to best fit how they shop?

Research should be used to answer these questions before deciding to pull your resources from one sales stream to social.

Social beyond marketing

Data, data, data…

Think social media is just a marketing tool? Think again. Social can benefit teams across your entire company.

The clearest and most direct link is to your other marketing departments. Social provides vast amounts of data which, when effectively sorted and interpreted, can uncover deep, actionable insights about your audience: not only their demographics, but their personality, buying behaviour, desires, pain points, how they use social, and the creative direction and messaging they respond to too. In turn, your marketing campaigns, messages, and audience targeting across all marketing efforts can be adapted to better resonate with them and drive results.

Beyond this, with an effective social strategy, use of social listening, and cohesive processes, social can enhance teams across:

• Research & development – Gain valuable customer feedback on things your clientele love or struggle with on your products or services. Not only this, but you can also discover industry pain points, or specifically about your competitors, and be the first to resolve them.
• Business strategy – Get in-depth insights into your audience and user behaviour to adapt your overall strategy for best results. Maybe there’s a new segment altogether you hadn’t considered previously, expressing interest for products or services like yours across social.
• Customer service – Many users use social media as a customer service platform. That means, by implementing strong community management processes, you can help maintain customer satisfaction, positive brand perception and social sentiment. In addition, you’ll reduce the number of queries heading to your support team. Yes, social marketers can save their brands from the service apocalypse!
• Branding and brand perception – Develop and/or maintain your brand look and feel on social. Express your brand’s personality, playing with humour and even sharing your view on sensitive subjects, like no other media type allows you to. Users will get a deeper stance of who you are and what you care about.
• Crisis management – Identify potential crises early. Develop appropriate responses and address them immediately to avoid situations spiralling out of your control.

Brands taking the lead in 2022 will be those who bring teams together to work more collaboratively to make more effective use of social insights. As we all know, data is a valuable commodity. And the greatest social currency is a solid understanding of your audience. Use it!

Conclusion

Across the past 2 years, the pandemic has shifted consumer behaviour greatly in both the time spent, and ways in which people use social media. Platforms are reacting through continued feature releases to keep their users entertained and reap the benefits. The primary goal of social is no longer the vanity number of followers, but can be anything across growing an engaged community, aiding your full customer journey from discovery through to post-purchase support, and even assisting teams across the rest of your business with social insights.

With so many options now available, social strategizing is key in order place your time and resources in the most effective places.

2022 will see more and more brands reaping the full benefits of social media, crafting an all-encompassing and connected force to use their profiles as a social space, sales stream, and customer support system. This will be achieved through continuous creativity in their content output, even collaborating with creators, to construct posts that blend into users’ feeds and close the gap between favoured creators to follow. Social commerce too will continue to expand as more options are introduced to the UK to buy in-app. Brands will explore product tagging, optimising storefronts, and live shopping sessions further, opening a new sales stream and testing their audience’s response.

The key to all our trends mentioned, across creativity, collaboration, and commerce ultimately resides in the effective use of social data. This will pave the way to optimising each element of your social strategy while additionally providing actionable insights to potentially help every other team in your business too.

So to sum up, for an effective social strategy in 2022, divulge in data-led creativity.

The post Social media marketing trends to look out for in 2022 appeared first on MintTwist.

You know who you are, what you’re selling, and who you’re selling to. You’ve found your niche. Or so you think. Somehow, you’re not getting the consumer response you were banking on. You’ve flatlined. So what’s going on? 

Chances are, during the heady days of planning you cast a wide net. Too wide. 

It’s natural to want to target as many consumers as possible – but resist the temptation. If your promotional strategy isn’t talking to a specific consumer group, a big chunk of your efforts will land in a black hole.

Instead, narrow your focus. Niche down.

Finding your focus

The global market is massive, and growing – but so is the competition to reach it. Plenty of fish in the sea doesn’t guarantee you a great catch – especially when so many other businesses are fishing the same waters. 

And some of them are market leaders in a broad range of industries – Stripe for payments, Salesforce for sales, Mailchimp for email marketing, for example. 

That doesn’t mean there’s no room for you. There are specific-use cases and regulations in each industry that these market leaders may not be able to cater to. That can give you a foot in the door and gain traction.

The key: knowing exactly what fish you’re after, and how you’re going to get them to bite.

Niching down is about getting a clear focus on who your ideal target customer is, then aligning your marketing accordingly.  Finding your niche isn’t an end in itself: it should be part of your overall marketing strategy.

Who are you talking to?

As you developed your marketing strategy, you defined your buyer persona. Who are they? What are their pain points, and how can you help resolve them?  

But over time – and with ever-growing competition – the target audience concept can become too generic and broad to be effective. 

You want to optimize the impact of your marketing strategy – and that’s where market segmentation comes in. This approach creates the kind of targeted strategies that will engage people who are already interested. Instead of trying to persuade ambivalent consumers to give your product a try, offer it to the people most likely to say “yes”.

Market segmentation helps you identify potential customers, choose which customers to pursue, and create value for those targeted customers. In other words, it’s about breaking your target audience down into smaller categories – which allows you to address their needs more accurately and effectively.

The more clearly defined the audience, the more customized and impactful the message.

Making sense of segmentation

A segment is a well-defined group of people or organizations that match your ideal customer profile. In marketing terms, that means they share similar product needs and buying behaviour. 

To be successful in your approach to market segmentation, you must be strategic. Don’t arbitrarily pick something because it sounds good at the moment: your choice should meet some very specific, practical criteria that will make it worth your time, attention, and money. It should be:

• accessible (otherwise your messaging is useless)
• measurable (allowing you to assess current and potential market share)
• substantial (making it worth your investment)
• aligned with your brand’s values (your audience should be receptive)

The bucket list

You may think you’ve already found your niche. But dig deeper. You’ll likely find multiple segmentation buckets to fill. Customize your customer segmentation by using key criteria. Among them:

Geographic:

Divide your customers based on their geographic location, which incorporates climate and rural/urban considerations. Brands that have a brick-and-mortar store may want to provide special incentives for customers who live near their physical location. Adopting a paid search management approach can help when segmenting potential customers, based on geographical location.

Demographic:

Demographics are a very effective way to target specific customers. Use tools like Facebook, Instagram, and Google Analytics to uncover audience demographics like age, education, gender, income, online presence, etc.

Psychographic:

To connect with your audience, you need to know what’s on their minds and what they care about. Familiarize yourself with their hobbies, interests, lifestyles, and values. That way, you’ll be able to create content that consistently engages them, their friends, and their families.

Get to know them and begin relationship-building by meeting them wherever they congregate online.

Behavioural:

Look at your audience’s buying behaviour. Build a profile based on their stage in the buying journey, their brand loyalty traits, purchasing style, product/service usage rate, etc.

Use your intel

If your business is up and running, take a look at your most profitable customers, and go by the 80/20 rule: generally, 80% of your sales will come from 20% of your customers. So focus on customers who make up the bulk of your profits. You want more of these!

Once you’ve created buckets of your major market segments, seek feedback from these customers on how you can better cater to this industry.  Try including more questions in your emails and social media marketing strategy. Generally, consumers are happy to offer information about themselves when it comes to their likes, dislikes, wants, and needs. 

Do a competitive analysis of existing players in your targeted niche. Is the market underserved, or at capacity?  Is it worth niching down? 

For example, if you’re competing against Stripe in the payments business, you may notice an emerging industry (like “electric vehicle charging stations”) that doesn’t have a lot of established competitors. If this is an industry you see growing, create a niche tool that will cater to that industry and grow with it.

Test it out

Create a customized framework that can give you a feel for whether your brilliant idea will flop or fly. Consider factors that will identify:

• market potential
• competition size
• barriers to entry (industry certification, for example)
• risk analysis (capital costs, market durability, etc.)

Then take an incremental approach. Start by gradually adding features to existing products that cater to your target audience. 

Ideally, your ideas will be validated by a positive consumer response. That’s your green light. Now you can double down and either spin off a new entity or rework the positioning of your existing company. 

What you’re left with: you – but better. So be smart about market segmentation: trim those nets!

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In addition to how competitive the SEO game is, it is also constantly changing, with Google rolling out hundreds of updates. This makes keeping up with SEO best practices highly demanding, with some of the old tactics like keyword stuffing and low-quality link building no longer being as effective – not to mention the risk of landing yourself a Google penalty. 

If you want to outsmart competitors and maintain a prominent position on SERPs, there is a need to be acquainted with SEO trends in 2022 and how to implement relevant best practices.

Here are some core organic search trends for 2022 from our London SEO services team, that hold the capability of transforming the search engine optimisation landscape throughout the year: 

Google Updates

It is estimated that Google rolls out hundreds of updates, every year. These updates are what shape the search engine optimization sphere. Most of them happen unnoticed. However, some come with changes that shake up the entire industry. In 2022, keeping up with Google updates – both existing and forthcoming changes – should be top of your list of priorities. Here are some of the key updates to keep tabs on this year:

The page experience update

This update was kickstarted in June 2021 and was completed the same year on the 2nd of September. The update was implemented to improve user experience offerings for results listed through Google. Following this, a page experience score system was created. You can view your site’s score in a report in Google Search Console. The update considers the following when scoring pages: 

• Core Web Vitals 
• Mobile Usability 
• Ad Experience 
• HTTPS Usage 
• Security 

Link spam update 

The update was geared towards improving the quality of the search results. Google stated that the 2021 link spam update would affect sites involved in link spam. The algorithms were made more effective at identifying and taking down link spam. The update also outlined inbound and outgoing linking best practices.

Product reviews update 

This update was done in April 2021 and its major objective was to give higher visibility to product review articles that are comprehensive with great quality. Another product review update was announced in December 2021. 

The MUM update 

The Multitask Unified Model (MUM) uses the capabilities of artificial intelligence to enable people to use the search engine to carry out more sophisticated tasks. Read this announcement to know about the update. 

Other powerful updates to consider are the Hummingbird update, RankBrain update, and BERT update. The updates mentioned here and others will play vital roles in shaping the SEO landscape in 2022. 

User Experience (UX) remains a key ranking factor

Since the Page Experience update was rolled out, user experience has become a key ranking factor. Search Experience Optimization (SXO) is a must in 2022 if you want to be a thousand miles ahead of your competitors. The Page Experience update takes into consideration how searchers interact with web pages and scores pages based on the same algorithms. Consider the following when scoring pages: 

• Core Web Vitals 
• Mobile Usability
• Ad Experience 
• HTTPS Usage 
• Security 

To improve user experience, you have to strategically optimise these page experience scoring factors. Here are the ways to go about it: 

1. Create easy-to-read, scannable content. 
2. Use Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP). 
3. Optimise codes, images, and videos. 
4. Implement other page speed improvement strategies. 

Algorithms use user engagement metrics, how much time a user spends on your page, and other user-related factors to determine overall user experience – which is one of the key ranking factors.

On-page optimisation

On-page optimization is a foundational SEO tactic and one of the ranking factors to look out for in 2022. The areas to focus on include: 

Content Structure: Organise content using H1, H2, H3, etc., and make it easy to read and scannable by breaking sections into small paragraphs. A large chunk of the content may intimidate readers and impact user experience negatively. 

Keyword Optimisation: Optimise keywords following the best practises. It is common knowledge that keyword stuffing does not work and you risk being penalised when you engage in it. 

Topic Optimisation: This refers to organising your content in a way that is easy to navigate for both visitors and Google crawlers. Have a key strategy and organise your content using a logical framework. 

Linking: Take authority flow into consideration when mapping out internal linking strategy. 

Image Optimisation: Including images in your content remains a ranking factor in 2022. Optimise with alt tags and use images that add value to the content. 

Video Optimisation: Place videos strategically within your content. Do this with caution to avoid increasing page load time. 

Off-page optimisation

Off-page technical variables are among the factors to be mindful of this year. If the technical part is not set up properly, your effort will not pay off as expected. Optimise key technical parameters and watch your pages perform better. Here are the things to care of:

Building off-site authority: Gain organic mentions online is one of the core SEO factors that has a significant impact on rankings. The authority of a page is an important ranking factor. Links pointing to and from authoritative websites are rated higher. To improve the authority of your content, be intentional about getting backlinks from reputable sources. 

Keep Tabs on Web Property with Google Search Console: Use this tool to check important technical variables. Things to keep an eye on include: 

• Security: Ensure your site’s SSL certificate is up to date. In addition, prevent mixed content. Having HTTP content on HTTPS pages could constitute a security challenge and cause indexing issues. 
• Incorrect Canonicals: Having the wrong canonical tag on a page can affect your rankings and in some cases lead to the removal of a page from the index.

• Structured Data: Adding structured data to your pages improves the chances of your pages showing up as featured snippets in the search results. 
• Page speed: Run page speed insights check from time to time. This will enable you to optimise page load times and consequently improve your rankings. 

A shift from offline to ecommerce

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused a boost in growth for the e-commerce sector. Due to the strict physical measures imposed across the globe, people resorted to shopping online – our ecommerce SEO London department can confirm this shift.

This trend is expected to continue this year and e-commerce platforms must do the needful to stay ahead of the curve. Consequently, you have to consider this when designing your SEO strategies. On-page and off-site optimisations should be focused on producing content that engages target audiences.

A shift to long-form content

Creators publishing long-form content see better results than others that focus mainly on short-form articles. According to the The Next Web, long-form content of 3,000 words or more gets more traffic and shares than short-form content. This trend is expected to be one of the SEO crucial criteria in 2022. Creating long-form articles will significantly enhance your search rankings. To make it work for you, you must publish content that is well-written, of good quality, and engaging. Keeping visitors engaged requires writing easy-to-read content using the most appropriate style. Break text into sections and subsections using H1, H2, and H3 to make them fun to read.

Google’s EAT principle is a ranking factor

Over the years, Google has repeatedly said that content quality is a key ranking criterion. But this can be confusing when you do not know what Google considers high-quality content. This is where the EAT principle comes in! EAT stands for expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness. The EAT rule is the standard Google uses to determine whether a page offers quality content or not. 

When creating content, keep EAT in mind and develop something that ticks all the boxes. You can easily follow the rule by backing up every claim with reliable sources and linking to reputable platforms. Including authoritative links in your pages makes fulfilling all Google’s EAT conditions easy.

Conclusion

The SEO landscape is constantly evolving, with a series of updates primarily aimed at improving the quality of service and user experience. On the part of SEO strategists, it can be overwhelming to keep tabs on these changes. However, our SEO agency London team provides insights into what the search engine optimization industry will look like in 2022. And how you can outsmart your competitors to secure prominent spots in search results pages.

If you want to kickstart your website’s SEO growth, feel free to reach out to us and say hello@minttwist.com.

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How to make your digital marketing strategy more productive and actionable?

Here are the nine tools that make it possible for me!

1. Google Calendar

Google Calendar tops my list because it works for pretty much anything, it drives collaboration and it is completely free. You can use it to set deadlines for any task, add people to co-work on anything and keep everyone informed.

If you’re working alone, put the steps in your calendar, and assign each task a specific chunk of time.

For example, don’t just say “I’ll write some of the emails on Tuesday”. Instead, say, “I’ll write the three invitation emails on Tuesday, from 1:00 to 2:30.”

By putting everything in your calendar, you increase the odds that you’ll actually commit to the tasks and get them done on time, and you give yourself a clear idea of how long the entire process will take, so you can choose a launch date and know that you have enough time to get things ready.

Be sure to schedule a bit of extra time in case something takes longer than you expect, or you experience a technical malfunction, delay or miscommunication.

There are a few great calendar WordPress plugins bringing Google Calendar functionality inside your WordPress dashboard for easier content and workflow management.

2. Text Optimizer

Every time I come across a blogger who is able to write every day, or who produces a new ebook once or twice a month, I feel an overwhelming jealousy. When I first got started, I was lucky if I could write a post twice a week and remain at the top of my quality game.

I have improved over the years, but I am nowhere near the level of those prolific content producers who seem to have a novel’s worth of content in them at all times. If you are looking for help on becoming one of them, this post is – sadly – not going to help you.

But if your aim is to write more productively and create varied content, this is the tool to use.

Text Optimizer is a semantic research tool that makes content research and optimization easy and productive. Just put in your target keyword and let the tool suggest topics worth covering if you want your content to be relevant. 

3. Databox

Databox is a business dashboard that can be used for anything, including content creation, influencer outreach and relationship building.

I use it to monitor multiple RSS feeds to keep in touch with the bloggers and influencers I previously had any contact with. Databox also connects to Gmail (Which is very useful because I keep a separate Gmail account just for relationship building and outreach purposes).

Databox free package is very concise: I never had to pay for the free plan. 

Databox offers an insane amount of integrations. There are a few great WordPress plugins that integrate with Databox.

4. WebCEO

When it comes to SEO, it is incredibly handy to keep all the metrics under the safe roof. You save time by not having to open multiple dashboards. And you are able to monitor everything and never miss a data source.

Which is where WebCEO comes in handy as it makes it possible to set it up based on which tasks you choose to prioritize. Check out their SEO routine automation tool allowing you to maintain multiple projects within one dashboard and scale specific tools to make the process more productive.

WebCEO is a great competitor research tool for any domain, it will show you phrases it ranks for as well as the progress: How the rankings have changed over time.

But I am also using it for influencer research as well: You can quickly run the blogger’s domain through the tool and see the areas of influence this blogger is in. It’s a great way to craft a more targeted pitch.

It also shows an incredible amount of data for free, so I prefer it over its competitors.

5. Namify

Namify is one of those tools that my team uses for launching just about anything. It uses artificial intelligence to generate business names based on your focus topic and core keyword.

As a result, your new name is short, easy to brand and makes perfect sense.

Namify also helps you pick a logo for your new project and define your whole visual identity. 

This tool makes starting a new project much easier and really productive.

6. Jarvis AI

I was a bit sceptical about AI-driven tools that claim to write content for you. Yet, this one came highly recommended, and I was pleasantly surprised by how well it works!

Jarvis.ai is a content productivity tool that is driven by artificial intelligence. It helps with ideation and creation (using auto-complete). It is surprisingly smart and always knows what I mean to say.

Creating relevant content cannot be automated, of course, but this tool can make it easier and more productive.

8. Agorapulse

Agorapulse is an awesome social media listening tool allowing your team to quickly reply to your customers’ private and public messages on social media. You can find any influencers in any topic, using combined search terms and categories.

There isn’t a whole lot to say about this one, as it is a very straightforward tool. But it is really useful and easy to use, so check it out.

One of the features that helps your team get more productive with digital marketing is its ability to let you assign any of the brand mentions to any employee or a team. This helps cross-team collaboration, removes silos and helps keep everyone in the loop.

10. Buzzsumo

Buzzsumo makes your team more productive on lots of levels:

• Find content ideas and evaluate how you can outperform your competitors
• Find popular niche search queries and questions
• Monitor industry trends
• Collect and curate customer reviews

I have been a big believer in Buzzsumo from the beginning, and it still has no peers when it comes to sheer feature amount for the price. It is an all-in-one business platform that works by giving you all the power over the tool.

You can use the tool for just about anything: sales, CRM, support, social media, marketing, analytics, and a dozen others. You are only limited by your imagination.

Buzzsumo is a super awesome platform that works by taking information from across the web related to content and offering it to you to use for targeting your own content campaigns.

Research content from any brand or competitor, see how it is performing, and find out how you match up. Buzzsumo is one of the greatest discovery tools on the web. They offer free searches and data, but it is worth paying for their pro services if you are really serious. Honestly, their agency package is probably the best deal, unless you are a really tiny brand or a start-up just beginning in the industry.

Buzzsumo is a great influencer marketing tool as well. It goes through your data in the past and present to create marketing patterns that find your most valuable influencers.

From there, you can focus on those people, rather than casting your net too wide. In influencer marketing, this is an incredibly important tactic that is too often ignored for the sake of reaching as many big names as possible. Don’t fall into that trap.

Conclusion

Productivity is key to efficiency and success. If you want your digital marketing to succeed, you need to optimize the process well and remove any organizational SEOs for your whole company to contribute ideas and participate in the promotion. 

Productivity doesn’t have to ruin creativity if you pick the right tools, and the above tools are perfect for that: They keep everyone efficient while promoting creative approaches and collaboration.

The post 9 tools for a more productive digital marketing strategy in 2022 and beyond appeared first on MintTwist.

This has been achieved by creating a trend in which the consumer takes pride in low-cost shopping in comparison to other longer-standing supermarkets who have an outdated ideology regarding low cost reflecting the low standard of quality. 

Having said this, the two supermarkets go head-to-head in an attempt to win the hearts of the nation for the most convenient shopping experience. Therefore, within this blog, we will look at which one is seen as the better option, particularly as a result of their social media strategies.

Social media following of Aldi vs Lidl

Both Aldi and Lidl perform well thought out marketing strategies to stay on top of the mind of consumers and create conversations. When looking at the following across all key social media platforms, it’s clear to see that Aldi maximise this area more so than Lidl (Refer to figure 1).

As we can see from the table above, both brands have a large following within the UK market, especially on Facebook. Most importantly, we can see that Aldi has considerably more than Lidl, particularly when looking at Facebook and Twitter.

Aldi’s social media marketing strategy

Free Cuthbert campaign

Aldi has recently taken part in the Free Cuthbert campaign which has gone down in Twitter history. The PR stunt of amusing tweets tickled the mood of the nation and got a lot of people talking which of course, drove impressions and engagement towards the brand. Although this is an unusual route to take for a legal issue it led to Aldi receiving 75K likes.

Having tweets that mirror how people interact with their friends, family and wider communities on social media, enable the brand to bring itself down to the level of the customer. In a world of uncertainty and anxiousness, the brands that will be remembered are the ones that offer a human and authentic approach to their marketing.  In exchange, you’ll get a better understanding of your customer base, ultimately, helping you build a better product or service.

Aldi’s 30^th Birthday Party campaign

Additionally, Aldi has been successful with is its willingness to engage with competitors daily. For example, for their Aldi30thBirthdayParty campaign, the business openly invited all supermarkets to celebrate with them in a light-hearted manner. This type of humour builds relationships and creates memorable experiences for their audiences. It also forced their competitor to use the hashtag which essentially got Aldi’s name trending on the Twitter list.

Lidl’s social media marketing strategy

Although Aldi seems to have killed the social strategy, with a clear understanding to social media trends, amongst all supermarkets, Lidl isn’t too far behind. Lidl also maintains a witty undertone on their socials which doesn’t go unmissed, however are more known for their successful campaigns.

Lidl’s Christmas campaign 2020

The supermarket touches many hearts every year when they launch their Christmas advert. Playing on a more emotional side rather than humorous. Lidl received 6.4 million views on their latest Christmas advert and 27 million impressions. Evidencing two contrasting campaigns having similar effects.

Lidl’s target audience

Lidl has recently developed its target audience from a slightly lower-class consumer to a more middle and upper class to compete within the market. By revamping its social strategy, Lidl plays on this idea of memorable experiences. For example, they have developed initiatives to offer vouchers to entertain families, suitability source fresh fish and remove artificial colours from a larger number of their label products. This emphasises the relationship the business is trying to have with its consumer by demonstrating their roles at a wider scale, rather than being just a supermarket.

Aldi vs Lidl

Although both brands occupy the same market, they have used different digital marketing strategies to differentiate themselves and their audience. Both have a huge online presence across all key social channels and use them in similar ways to connect and interact with those who follow.

As demonstrated, their social media strategies have brought great success to them both which has ultimately turned people into becoming loyal customers. Despite Lidl having less of a following across all channels, it is important to take away the fact that this doesn’t act as a disadvantage seeing as it may have taken Aldi’s place for the nation’s favourite. Therefore, with well-planned marketing strategies, you will be able to increase your reach and engagement rates and produce conversation organically. 

Key takeaways

So, overall, what has stood out from these two businesses:

1. Take a humancentric approach to your marketing – by bringing yourself down to the level of the customer, you are simultaneously creating relationships by making your business more relatable.

2. Be socially aware of what’s going on around you – including what’s going on with your competitors. This can be turned into light-hearted content to be shared.

3. Use hashtags – hashtags are a great way to boost engagement for your business.

4.Go big and beyond your title – You don’t want to just provide your customers with a service but also a feeling.

Which brand do you think won this battle of the brands? Let us know what you think via our socials! We’d love to know.

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Keyword and search ad format changes

Google is closing the door on the use of Expanded Text Ads (ETA) within its ads network, with advertisers no longer being able to create or edit ETA’s after 30th June 2022. Responsive Search Ads (RSAs) will be the only creatable and editable search ad type moving forward. This ad format automatically tests different combinations with a maximum of 15 headlines and four descriptions per ad to identify the best performers. Google states that the intention behind this move is to show the ‘right message for the right query’ within a wider variety of relevant auctions. RSAs have been the default ad type within Google’s UI since February 2021.

It is worth noting that previously existing ETAs will continue running, providing data for reporting and being pausable/removable after June 2022. The automatic nature of RSAs limits detailed breakdowns of exact copy performance. Therefore, we recommend rigorously testing specific ad copy combinations up until their cut-off point. You may also wish to pre-emptively create ad variants for future use and testing. Implementing RSAs now within all ad groups should help develop realistic benchmarks in terms of CTR and conversion performance.

In a further move towards automated advertising, Google began incorporating elements of Broad Match Modifier (BMM) into phrase match during the first half of 2021, resulting in the discontinuation of BMM as a separate match type. This update essentially expanded the reach of phrase match nearer to the levels of BMM, while still maintaining controlled search query targeting. As of July 2021, BMMs were no longer able to be created and legacy BMM keywords automatically adopted the updated phrase matching behaviour.

Search engine diversification

Google still dominates the global search engine sphere, averaging roughly 90% market share across mobile and desktop devices in 2021. On the surface, it may seem an impossible task to perform positively in the face of such strong competition. However, smaller engines are rapidly gaining in popularity both among users and advertisers alike.

The search platform, DuckDuckGo, has experienced exponential growth in their number of search queries processed since 2019; Yandex and Baidu have also experienced remarkable region-specific performance accounting for roughly 60% of Russia’s search market and over 85% of China’s search traffic respectively; and Bing has increased its search advertising revenue, excluding traffic acquisition costs, by 13% for the fiscal year 2021. Microsoft, the parent company of Bing, has also increased the accessibility of its advertising platform through developing Google import – a service designed to move ad campaigns easily from Google Ads onto the Microsoft Search Network.

Responsive Display Ad assets

In our estimation, Google will continue with its uptake of Responsive Display Ads (RDAs) in 2022. With this development, Google automatically combines customer-provided ad assets such as images, videos, headlines and descriptions, effectively simplifying the creative process. This format extends advertising reach by automatically optimising for a multitude of different ad spaces within the Google Display Network while maintaining brand image and lowering the reliance on internal/external designers.

For prospective advertisers who are unsure whether these dynamic ad formats will benefit their business, RDAs can still be run alongside traditional static image display ads, providing an opportunity to test and compare results.

Video advertisements

The use of video as an advertising format has proven increasingly popular in recent years, with:

• 86% of businesses now utilise video as a marketing tool – up 35% from 2016
• Video Ad spending is expected to show an annual growth rate of 12.55% from 2021 to 2025
• 82% of all internet traffic will be from video by 2022

This increase in video consumption comes with a caveat: user’s attention spans are shortening. With it, the need for fast, focused and short content has become fundamentally important, with 25% of adults stating that they will close a video after 10 seconds.

This trend is particularly evident in the large-scale uptake of social media platforms based around short form videos: TikTok has surpassed 1 billion users worldwide, YouTube shorts established a $100 million fund to be distributed to content creators over the course of 2021-2022 and Instagram has announced its intention to become a video-first platform optimised for mobile viewing with full screen reels and IGTV as focal points. Google has developed a tool powered by machine learning that creates multiple short (6 sec or less) videos, known as bumper ads; these are derived from crucial moments within longer assets and designed to be placed in front of YouTube videos.

A good paid media video strategy will aim to produce authentic advertising experiences which mimic organic content on the previously mentioned platforms. An alternative approach would be to use high performing pre-existing organic videos to reupload as standalone paid advertisements. In-app engagement data collected from this strategy is unaffected by iOS tracking restrictions, in turn allowing for accurate retargeting and lookalike audiences to be built.

Expanding social commerce space

Buying products via social media networks is not a new concept, with over 25% of shoppers now using social media to discover new products. Social commerce, however, aims to create more seamless user experiences by supporting purchases natively in-app. The lines between content creation, entrepreneurship and consumption are becoming increasingly blurred. This trend has become increasingly apparent in video-centric platforms that offer a seamless opportunity to showcase products and their features in context. The impact of viral trends such as #TikTokMadeMeBuyIt has helped business owners generate millions of dollars in revenue, and in some cases caused national shortages of certain items.  

This recent evolution, combining the convenience of social commerce and its inbuilt emphasis on virality, has led platforms like TikTok to experiment with new features: products can now be promoted and sold directly through livestreams, and a recently expanded partnership with Shopify has introduced TikTok Shopping, an in-app feature located within certain approved profiles. Campaigns can now be run and optimised on TikTok directly through the Shopify dashboard.

Voice search

Growing consumer demand for voice-enabled services such as Alexa, Bixby and Siri coupled with advancements in voice-based AI technologies have resulted strong growth within the voice search sector. Analysts predict strong market growth ranging from $2.8 billion in 2021 to $11.2 billion by 2026.

As a result, voice-driven shopping is expected to increase in popularity, becoming a $40 billion dollar conduit by 2022, compared to only $2 billion in 2017. On-the-go searches will make up make up a large part of this search traffic due, in part, to the increasing availability of mobile devices supporting voice-enabled technology. Research suggests that one primary intention for on-the-go searches is to discover local information about nearby businesses. Therefore, we should consider steps that optimise for location-specific voice search queries:

• Regularly and accurately update ‘Google My Business’, local directory and map listings’ information
• Use conversational, natural language to answer spoken questions
• Target query modifiers such as ‘near me’ or ‘open now’
• Include at least one ad group based on conversational language and these keywords

Growing privacy concerns

There has been a strong shift in public sentiment over recent years regarding appropriate privacy protection and data handling by private organisations. This growing concern has been addressed both by governmental legislation, such as the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation), as well as private initiatives from Apple in the form of their controversial iOS 14 update and from Google through initiating the phase out of browser cookies due for completion by the end of 2023.

So, what does this mean for marketers? From a practical perspective, diversifying current ad channels will help maximise exposure and reach, while mitigating against any future changes to the privacy landscape that may be introduced. This could include experimenting with unused paid media channels such as LinkedIn or Reddit, as well as integrating alternative search platforms such as Bing or Yandex into your paid search strategy.

Given the large-scale paradigm shift on the horizon, privacy interventions will continue generating challenges to marketing operations. The frames of reference we used in building current strategies are likely to become outdated by 2023. You can stay ahead of the curve by exploring the innovative solutions proposed by Google with their new set of API’s called ‘The Privacy Sandbox’, or Facebook with their growing emphasis on utilising The Facebook Conversion API to better track conversion events in a post iOS 14 world.

Conclusion

High on the list of global trends next year are the impacts brought about by privacy regulation, both governmental and private. Google, from its position as the world’s overriding search engine, also dominates forthcoming trends as it implements changes to its Ads keywords, ETAs,RDAs, APIs and other protocols. In response to Google’s overwhelming market dominance, watch out for the growth of region-specific alternatives (e.g., DuckDuckGo, Yandex, Baidu) as well as the pioneering thrust of new start-ups.

Expect further growth in video production and consumption, particularly the large-scale uptake of short, focused videos by social media platforms such as TikTok and YouTube. The convergence of commerce and social media will continue apace, as platforms expand their commercial partnerships and their own video-centric showcasing. Listen out for rising consumer demand via voice-enabled services such as Alexa, Bixby and Siri, particularly in the area of on-the-go local search traffic.

This post-COVID era will present us with extraordinary challenges about the nature of digital information and marketing, at the same time as offering us exciting possibilities for dynamic modifications and creative new growth.

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Let’s take a look at the user-focused factors concerning organic rankings, as well as the changes Google’s making to their search results pages and updated guidelines for ecommerce webmasters.

The core update rollout

SEO consultants and search marketers were anticipating Google’s core November update.

The update was rolled out and implemented over a 1-2 week period, causing organic ranking fluctuation – during the busiest online retailing period of the year!

Ranking factors

Google has been quite transparent with their latest changes. John Mueller dissects factors concerning the November update, through their Youtube Google Search News Update.

Here are the main factors to consider, with this update:

Site speed and responsiveness

Although this is nothing new to SEO consultants and our SEO agency in London, sitespeed and responsiveness have been highlighted as two key variables concerning UX, and ultimately, organic rankings.

HTTPS

Again, Google has already spoken and acted upon this in previous updates. With the protocol offering user’s end to end encryption, ensuring your site offer’s both a HTTPS and an up to date SSL certificate will improve web security. This is a major trust signal that not only Google wants to see, but it can play a major conversion factor for users looking to exchange sensitive information online.

Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)

The LCP metric measures the time it takes to present users the largest available content on-screen. 

It’s great to consider this metric when developing web pages – but it’s also important to know that this metric only takes into account content above the webpage fold. This ultimately considers content presented to users prior to any user interaction.

Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)

CLS is a measure of the instability of content by summing shift scores across layout shifts that don’t occur within 500ms of user input.  To break it down granularly, here are some common causes of poor CLS:

• Ads, embeds, and iframes without dimensions
• images without dimensions
• Actions waiting for a network response before updating DOM 
• Web fonts causing FOIT/FOUT
• Dynamically injected content

First Input Delay (FID)

FID is a core metric that captures a user’s first impressions of a site’s interactivity and responsiveness. It measures the time from when a user first interacts with a page to the time when the browser is actually able to respond to that interaction.

Continuous scrolling comes to search on mobile

Google have scrapped their individual search engine result pages for mobile, and have introduced a continuous scroll functionality for search – a bit like social news feeds! Depending on how users adapt to this new functionality, this may have big implications for organic rankings

With a continuous scroll, users no longer have to physically engage in activating page 2,3,4, etc, but will now be given the ability to view up to page 4 results in one listing. For sites that don’t currently rank on page one for particular keywords, this is a great opportunity for improved organic visibility.

For Google, this could possibly mean click-through rates will play a stronger ranking signal, for search engine results pages, as users will be presented a wider more accessible scope of results. Balanced against variables such as on-page interactions and bounce rates, this new initiative could be a sign of even more augmented importance on user interaction-based data to depict rankings.

Google has announced they intend to add the same continuous scroll functionality for users as of February 2022.

Google updated their ecommerce guide

Google has updated their ecommerce guide for webmasters and developers. The guide outlines pointers and best practices to take into account when considering ecommerce SEO into web development and planning.

The bulk of the topics span from Where ecommerce content can appear on Google to Pagination, incremental page loading, and their impact on Google search.

How these updates may affect you

These updates broadly speaking (industry dependent) wouldn’t be considered be all or end all SEO factors. Saying that, they should be seen as minor signals you should reflect upon and analyse against your website, to see if these factors would affect you.

Whether a lead generation or ecommerce business, these factors won’t dictate your ability to rank organically but should serve as an indication of how Google’s looking to shape their user’s search experience. A focus on user experience within these updates should be a clear indicator that Google will be implementing more and more user-centric signals to consider as organic search ranking factors.

To find out more about how our paid search management or SEO agency London team can help, get in touch!

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