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Improve Your
DIGITAL
MARKETING
STRATEGY
IN 2018
Index
Introduction 03
Community Building 12
Index
Introduction
It’s 2018, and we’ve already written up your business’ New Year’s resolution for you. This year
you’re going to build a digital strategy that makes you a stand-out thought leader in your
industry, with quality content, qualified leads, and impressive conversion rates, that will
surprise even the most optimistic member of your team.
Unlike the January gym-goers, we won’t have you turning in the towel February 1. This year
we have outlined the six key areas to focus your digital efforts this year so that the only
question you’ll be asking by 2019 is, how do we beat this ? Read our comprehensive
breakdown to get started on your strategy.
In Google’s Site Performance for Webmasters Video , Maile Ohye states that “2 seconds is
the threshold for e-commerce website acceptability. At Google we aim for half a second.” Half
a second, or 0.5 seconds is a blink of an eye. This means that 500 milliseconds to 2 seconds
is not reserved for the exceptional, it’s the 2018 page speed average.
Site speed is vital for search engine optimization (SEO). Authoritative search engines want to
provide relevant and fast answers to enhance user experience. For this reason, site speed
plays a large part in the SEO ranking of landing pages and sites. If you want your digital
content to reach more people, 2018 is the time to improve the load time of your site. This year
you can refine your site details to optimize page speed and make an impact on SEO in five
Optimize Images
One of the poorest user experiences when entering a site is watching a large image slowly
materialize, dragging the entire page speed in the process. If your page only requires a
1200px by 600px image, do not post a 2400px by 1200px image. Always save the highest
quality version of the image on a drive or on the back-end of the site but post the exact
pixel size required. This will significantly increase the speed of your page, especially if it
features a multitude of images.
Although cookies are typically small, they can add up and bloat request headers with
useless coding.
More users than ever before are finding, browsing, and shopping for information, products,
and services on their mobile device. Google has taken notice. Google is officially testing a
mobile-first index and if you’re not all aboard the mobile-friendly train, then you and your site
are being left at the station.
The mobile-first index scans through sites and registers mobile-friendly sites before
searching for desktop versions of the same information. Even with a strong desktop-friendly
site with exceptional SEO-driven content, you will end up the second-stringer if you flop on
mobile. These are a few steps you can take to ensure your site is armed with mobile-ready
requirements.
Of Course, Speed
As previously mentioned, speed is essential for enhancing user-experience and meeting
the online viewer’s 2018 demand for faster-than-the-blink-of-an-eye loading capability.
Use the suggested adjustments outlined above to cut down on unnecessary coding,
leverage browser caching, optimizing images, and reducing redirects.
Ditch Flash
Flash no longer works well on mobile. Many viewers can’t view any Flash content on their
phone and show a higher bounce rate when they become frustrated with the obstacle.
Swap Flash for a mobile-friendly format.
Here’s one important question to ask yourself in 2018: how are you driving traffic to your
website? Do you produce quality content with the hopes that it will fall into the hands of a
Don’t put your eggs in one basket. You should always have a variety of channels directing
traffic to your site so that you can reach a variety of audiences. The following are a few basic
avenues you should tighten up in 2018 to stay relevant in the digital space. Diversify traffic
with the following strategies.
Another key tip is to try to rank for SEO terms that are specific and attainable. Vague terms
with high search volumes can often be too competitive to tackle. Try to rank for long-tail
keywords that your customer would search for.
Write regularly, perhaps once a week, to ensure there is a constant stream of content
coming from your site. If you have a robust content team, use one article a week as your
absolute minimum.
Another popular paid method is AOL sponsored listings. These allow advertisers to target
Google AdWords is another great tool that can provide massive amounts of traffic to your
site. You can hit top ad positions if you’re willing to outbid your competition but it can take
some time to grasp how AdWords works and avoid paying an above average cost per click.
Ensure that your content is easily shareable so that people can pass on the post and
influence more users. Every blog post on your site should have a social media plugin or
button that allows viewers to easily share it on their platforms.
Engage your audience consistently on social. Many successful companies have a variety
of social posts being shared in any given day. Use your social media management team
to your advantage and create a content calendar that posts at the right time of the day on
relevant subjects.
Choose the right social channel for your type of content. Sharing a video on Twitter may
not be as advantageous as posting it to Facebook. Some pieces of content are suitable
for every social channel, but others can fall flat in certain formats.
Create a piece of gated content, a lead form, a resources landing page, or a pop-up with
an offer, that all require the person’s first name, last name, and email address. Once you
have built up your email list you can customize content and send subscribers to specific
Email programs are a great way to track a lead on their buyer’s journey into a potential
customer (and long afterward). Create an email strategy that delivers relevant and
valuable content to subscribers.
As a business in the digital era, having a solid reputation is fundamental to ensure people
trust your brand and feel confident using your products or services. If you Google a restaurant
in the area and the first thing that comes up is a 2.5 star rating and a slew of disappointed
reviews, you’re probably going to choose someplace else to eat.
Reputation can be seen and heard online and offline. In 2018 focus on improving the things
that you can control. There are a variety of measures you can take online to encourage a
positive reputation for your business. This will help you stand out and bring more customers
in.
Build loyalty by responding to reviews. You can be prompt answering questions or helpful
in addressing conflict by starting a two-way conversation with reviewers.
Learn how to manage negative reviews by being responsive and helpful. Ask for more
information from the reviewer about their poor experience and go above and beyond to
rectify a negative experience. Sometimes a positive response to a bad experience can
reshape the customer’s impression of your business.
Encourage people to review your company so you can collect a sizeable amount of
feedback. Having hundreds of reviews on Facebook, or Google My Business can enhance
the credibility of your business.
Spend resources in 2018 to review and improve your customer service. Ensure that the
people in charge of customer service know how to be responsive, accommodating, and
pleasant in addressing questions and conflict.
Now that you’ve learned how to attract quality leads and traffic to your site, it’s important to
learn how to turn those leads into customers and drive conversions. It’s beyond frustrating to
put a lot of work into your product and marketing strategy and be met with poor conversion
results. Tick off every box by optimizing conversion rates.
6 Community Building
COMMUNITY
BUILDING
One of the largest missed opportunities businesses fail to recognize is the importance of
community building in digital strategy. Thought leadership, outreach, and offline events are
still important ways to build your brand and business. Make an active effort in 2018 to ensure
your brand is recognized and seens as a trusted source of information in your field, here’s
how.
Do Some Outreach
You’re not marketing to numbers, you’re marketing to people. Outreach is a great way to
take your marketing back to its roots and connect with leads in a human-way. Outreach is
about reaching out to the right people at the right time to tell your brand’s story.
Reach out to trusted bloggers who are authentic and have positive relationships with their
readers. Take notice when other pages give your brand a shout out and email your brand’s
biggest fans to ask for their opinions and maintain contact. Using a third party to market
your brand is a great way to reach relevant audiences.
Guest Blogging
Guest blogging is when you offer to write content for similar blogs in the industry and in
exchange, feature a link to your own blog. This is a great opportunity to promote your own
name and blog in your industry. Allocate a part of your content team to seek out guest
blogging opportunities. This is another way to be seen and heard in your business’
community.