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Category: Digital Marketing

Here’s What’s Happening With the 2021 Google Update, Core Web Vitals

Posted on by Alice Momo

Worldwide we make, on average, 1.2 trillion Google searches a year. It seems like every day there’s another Google update. These updates are to ensure the best user experience for all those searches.

From time to time, Google’s updates change the ranking factors. This can cause some angst amongst digital marketers and SEO professionals! This is due to fear of the unknown and not knowing whether your years of work to get a page ranking in the first place will be undone.

Don’t worry; we are here to break down the Google update 2021 for you. So when it comes around in June, there won’t be any nasty surprises!

What’s New With the Google Update 2021?

There are many factors taken into consideration by the page ranking algorithm when a search engine ranks a page.

This new update from Google will focus on using the core web vitals when ranking online content. Let’s take a look at what those core web vitals are:

1. Mobile Optimization

About half of internet users access the web via mobile devices. If your site isn’t optimized for mobile viewing, you will be penalized. Google will favor sites that load easily on mobile devices.

Take a look at some Google search trends for further ideas on how to optimize your site.

2. Page Speed

The time it takes your webpage to load is another important factor Google takes into consideration when determining page ranking.

Your images and video content need to load within 2.5 seconds of someone clicking on your page. Compress them using a tool like Tinypng to help speed up your page load time.

3. Safety

Google will now put more importance on the safety of your site. Do you use HTTPS or encryption to protect your users’ data and credit card details?

In the security section of your Google Search Console, you can check if your site has been compromised.

4. Intrusive Interstitials

If your site has annoying banners or pop-ups that are hard to get rid of, it interferes with the user getting the information they want from your site. The SERPs will now penalize this.

5. Interactivity

This refers to how easy it is for a user to find what they want on your website. How quickly does the site handle the clicks made by the user? You want the way your user interacts with the site to be as smooth as possible.

6. Visual Stability

Another element that contributes to the user experience is visual stability. This means that when someone scrolls down your site, boxes, or ads don’t pop up; the text doesn’t move around.

Previously you could scroll halfway down a website, an ad would pop up, and you would leave the site. With the new update, sites that do this will go down in the search rankings.

Design Your Site With UX in Mind

The Google update 2021 isn’t a scary change. It is ensuring the user gets the best experience possible. User experience is at the forefront of search criteria; Google wants the searcher to find what they are looking for.

If you design your website with the user in mind, make it fast, easy to navigate, and secure, you will have no problems moving up the SERPs with the new algorithm updates.

Need some professional advice on how to update your website? Get in touch with our team.

How to Create A Powerful Communication Strategy for Your Next Online Event

Posted on by Alice Momo

Did you know the average business can spend up to 24% of a yearly budget on digital marketing? Those funds are often used to develop an effective communication strategy. That strategy can include increasing online presence, creating new social channels, and more.

But what about your business’s online event strategy or event promotion? In today’s climate, there are many. You may struggle to keep your business, team, and clients engaged.

Do you want to connect international teams? Or, do you want to impress an important client? Then, you must design a successful online event to achieve these goals.

So, how can you improve your business communication to elevate your next event? Read on to discover our best strategies to foster collaboration and growth.

Know Your Purpose

Your online event should be planned to meet a particular goal or serve a business purpose. When you are clear on the purpose of the event, you can launch your communication strategy and drive the event.

Want to gain clarity around your event purpose? Here are some questions to ask:

  • Why am I hosting this event?
  • Does my business need this event?
  • Will this help grow revenue or attract clients?

Know Who You Serve

How can you create an effective communication strategy for your online event if you don’t know who you serve? Creating a buyer persona can identify this information. You can collect data and use it to streamline your communication strategy.

Activation Phase

Client awareness is nothing without activation. For example, Big Bold Thinkers can help convert awareness into bottom-line results. The team helps influence behaviour where consumers and brands meet.

Be Prepared

You will need to plan out each step of your online event. The organization helps to prevent technical issues or delays.

Choose Your Channels

Your channel choice should align with your event goals and client persona. Is your client base traditional? An email blast with a formal RSVP should work.

A digital marketing team can help choose the most effective channels. They can create the ideal event marketing strategy for your business.

Confirm Attendees (and Remind Them)

Confirm attendees and organize the data. But, don’t forget to communicate reminders through your chosen channels.

Go Time!

The online event is finally here! But don’t relax just yet. Have a communication plan in case of technical delays or other unforeseen circumstances.

Follow Through

Once your online event is over, don’t miss the opportunity to follow up with your clients and team. Communicate and ask for feedback. This follow-up and attention to detail will go a long way to build your company’s reputation and brand awareness.

A Powerful Communication Strategy Can Improve Online Events and Grow Your Business

An effective communication strategy is more than a way to keep your team organized or serve your clients. By developing this strategy and applying it to your next online event, you can grow your business. Online events are a way to attract or deter clientele.

By running a smooth and memorable online event, you can set the tone for your brand and company. This can result in increased sales, loyalty, and brand awareness.

Do you need help developing this strategy for your next event? Contact Big Bold Thinkers to subscribe to the blog to learn more and inquire about services.

A Clever Guide to Establishing Your Brand in 2021

Posted on by Alice Momo

Experiencing difficulty in establishing your brand?

Every business is going through hurdles. Not only are there thousands, if not millions, of competitors but the recent pandemic also made it harder for businesses to survive. You’ll want unique and impactful ways to build your brand and make a lasting impression.

The good news is we’ve got three effective tips for you to follow. Read our guide right here and learn how you can establish your brand in no time:

Have a Sense of Humor

Sometimes, it’s okay to step away from a serious tone to have some fun. Start establishing your brand with a bit of humor.

Wendy’s is perhaps the most popular business when it comes to building their brand with humor. The company turns to Twitter to consistently roast competitors and even fans, all for good fun.

You can do the same. Let your audience know your business hasn’t shed its personality aside. Connecting on a human level helps consumers trust and prefer a brand more.

However, make sure you also know when to stop and not cross a sensitive line. Racist jokes and other forms of harsh insults shouldn’t become a part of your humorous arsenal.

Analyze, Analyze, Analyze

Not sure how to market brand concepts or new themes in 2021?

You should look hard at the numbers. Successful branding in 2021 requires taking a moment to study the metrics and then using that data to your advantage.

Learn how to know your audience better. Are your consumers mostly teenagers on TikTok and Instagram or are they young adults spread across Twitter, Facebook, and Reddit? Do your consumers check out video ads on social media and what day or time is most of your target demographic audience active?

Hop on Social Media

Social media marketing doesn’t directly affect your SEO or PPC efforts. However, these platforms become crucial tools for effective brand building in 2021. Most people are on some form of social media these days, from Facebook to TikTok and others.

Keep in mind that social media is where you get to directly communicate with your audience. These are the platforms where you’ll be the most exposed so take extra care when replying to comments or when posting new ads.

Don’t forget to ignore today’s paid social media trends either. Using tools like Facebook Pixel, paid video ads, and more can make or break your marketing and branding efforts.

Start Establishing Your Brand Today

What are you waiting for? Start establishing your brand with these crucial tips! Get on social media, study the numbers, and inject a sense of humor.

Using these tips, you can establish your brand’s personality and communicate better with your consumers. Of course, these aren’t the only tips and marketing strategies to follow.

That’s where we come in! We can provide expert tips and services to further establish your brand. Get in touch with us right here and let us help you build your brand in 2021 and beyond!

A Brief Guide to Voice Search in Digital Marketing

Posted on by Alice Momo

“Okay Google, what is voice search optimization?”

The internet is a changing place and voice search in digital marketing is one of the biggest areas of growth at the moment. Talking to a computer may have seemed like science fiction a decade or more ago. Today, it is commonplace.

55% of users currently utilize voice search to ask questions of an AI using a smartphone, smartwatch, or smart speaker. This number is growing rapidly every day. It is therefore important that you harness voice search as a part of your SEO strategy.

The question is how do you implement voice search as a part of your digital marketing strategy?

In this article, we’ll look at how you can optimize for voice search.

What is Voice Search in Digital Marketing?

Putting it simply, voice search allows people to search for information just by speaking into their device. Typically, voice search can be found on smartphones and other similar devices.

As more-and-more people adopt this type of technology, more Google voice searches will be made.

How Does Voice Search Differ From Traditional Search?

The most noticeable difference between voice search and traditional search is that you speak your search query instead of typing it.

Voice search makes use of longtail keywords that are more conversational in nature. This is because when we’re using a device with voice search we’ll ask the question in full.

For example, you’ll be more likely to say “Okay Google, where is the nearest hardware store?” rather than “hardware store near me” which is how you might phrase it when typing.

Although you can ask any question using voice search, it is generally used mostly for finding services that are local to them.

Voice search gets to the point quickly. Because users want to hear the answer back immediately, voice search uses featured snippets to provide results.

Instead of reading several results back, you’ll just hear your device let you know the answer to your question. If there is a more in-depth answer, your device will ask if you’d like to visit the site.

Creating the Best Digital Marketing Strategy for Voice Search

The great news is that by working on making your site accessible to voice search, you won’t harm your current SEO strategy or traditional search.

There are several things you can do. These include:

Optimize Your Content for Featured Snippets

By optimizing your content for featured snippets and rich answers, you’ll be opening yourself up to feature in voice search results. You should also include knowledge panels and knowledge boxes.

These will help prepare your content for voice search.

Use Google My Business and Employ a Local SEO Strategy

To appear in ‘near me’ searches, you should set up your Google My Business profile. The bare minimum you should include is your name, address, and phone number. However, the more full your profile is, the better your chances will be of ranking higher.

Write in a Conversational Manner

Optimizing your content for voice search involves writing in a conversational tone, using natural language.

It’s essential to understand who is reading your content before deciding on the voice you’ll write in. Ask yourself what question keywords will they use?

How to Use Voice Search in Your SEO Strategy

By utilizing voice search in digital marketing, you’ll be able to appear in more searches. With the technological changes that are occurring, you’ll need to optimize for voice search to stand out.

For help optimizing for voice search in your SEO strategy, get in touch today.

Accelerate Leads and Sales Today With These Mobile Marketing Tips

Posted on by Alice Momo

By 2025, it’s estimated that almost three-quarters of internet users will access the web solely via their smartphones.

Not only did smartphones give consumers more access to the web, but they changed the digital marketing landscape forever. Because of this, it’s vital that all businesses focus on mobile marketing. If not, you limit your potential growth and overall revenue.

But don’t panic if you’re not familiar with mobile marketing. It’s not hard to master, yet it can change your business fortunes.

In this article, we’ll share some simple but powerful mobile marketing tips. Add these to your digital strategy and see the difference almost instantly.

Read on for more information.

Ensure Your Website Is Mobile Friendly

Before you jump straight into creating new digital marketing campaigns, it’s important to cover the basics. It’s vital that your website is mobile-friendly.

Your website is your online shop and needs to be accessible to everyone. And, due to the increase in mobile internet users, search engines have made this a priority.

In fact, Google has admitted that mobile-friendliness is a major ranking factor. So, if your website isn’t optimized for mobile, then you have zero chance of landing the number one spot.

But don’t panic, because it’s an easy fix.

WordPress has lots of mobile-friendly themes, and some are even free. If you don’t use WordPress, then ensure your host offers these types of themes, or hire a web designer to help.

Create a Google My Business Page

Mobile users are different from desktop users in that they want answers quickly. They’re often on the go and don’t have time to read long articles or spend time browsing the web.

They often carry out searches like ‘best Chinese restaurants near me’ or ‘local convenience stores’. After the search, the top results are usually Google My Business listings.

These types of listings show an address, services offered, and even customer reviews. They make it easy for people to find the services they need quickly.

It’s free to set up a Google My Business account and we recommend you do. Not only does it help with SEO, but it’s useful for lead generation marketing.

Start Utilizing Social Media

Most social media engagements come from mobile users, so it’s important you’re active on the platforms.

Start implementing a social media strategy into your marketing campaign. This could be scheduling posts and creating Facebook ads.

Remember, a good tip to get engagement on social media is to ask questions. People love to offer their opinions, so ask for feedback on products and services.

Simple Mobile Marketing Tips You Should Know

We hope you have enjoyed reading our article on mobile marketing tips.

As you can see, there are easy ways to help boost your mobile marketing strategy. By implementing these, you should see an increase in organic traffic and conversions.

Finally, if you want help with mobile marketing, then contact us to see how we can assist.

Online Business: Understanding Your Visitors and Customers

Posted on by Alice Momo

Last year, almost 1.8 billion people shopped online. For any online business, that’s a significant number of people to engage. To make the most of today’s increasing online shoppers, you need to understand your target audience.

There are a few critical factors to consider when marketing to online business customers. Read this guide to learn more ways to boost engagement and generate leads.

Site Analytics

Analyzing your website can tell you a lot about site visitors. The customers of your online business will behave in certain ways, which special tools can track. You can audit your site and generate valuable data on these users.

Google Analytics is a free tool that works for most websites. There are plenty of other alternatives, too. You can find comparable analytics tools, or better yet, consult professionals in digital marketing.

Typically site analytics measure several elements. These metrics include the following:

  • Session visits: number of site visitors and the effectiveness of calls to action
  • Marketing channels: paid and organic search, email, referrals, social media, and display ads
  • Bounce rate: who visits your online business and leaves after one webpage
  • Conversion rate: contact forms generating leads, or other KPIs for your online business

These metrics inform potential action steps you can take for your business. Knowing what motivates your visitors is easier with site analytics.

Click-Mapping

One important extension of site analytics involves click-mapping. It shows everything online business customers click (whether it’s clickable or not). You can learn valuable information this way.

For example, you’ll learn what parts of a webpage receive the most attention. You can see which links get clicked the most and how far down they scroll on a page. There are a wide variety of click-mapping tools available to enhance your online business.

Using this tool, you can create heatmaps of virtual hotspots for online business visitors. You can learn which ads are most or least effective. You can even discover new opportunities for lead generation based on where customers click the most.

Feedback

You can understand your online business audience beyond studying their behaviour. Customer data is certainly invaluable, but so is customer feedback. One of the best forms of engagement occurs with intentional interaction.

However you communicate with customers for your online business, they need engagement. Whether it’s reviewed on your site, comments on social media, or direct email contact, listen to them. You can incentivize responses or use whatever customers provide.

Customer feedback offers rich opportunities for growth and development. The more you listen to customers, the more engaged they feel. They’ll share more and you’ll understand how to best market your business to them.

Learn More Tips to Boost Your Online Business

The world of digital marketing is constantly changing, just like your consumers. To stay ahead of these changes, you need the latest information. We call ourselves Big Bold Thinkers for a good reason.

Part of thinking boldly means staying ahead of the latest industry developments. As experts in digital marketing, we understand how important it is to keep ourselves (and you) informed. Follow the Big Bold Blog to learn more ways to boost your online business.

5 Steps to Building a Results-Focused Digital Marketing Campaign

Posted on by Alice Momo

How can your business build a digital marketing campaign that focuses on results?

Wasting your budget on a scattergun approach may bring some extra traffic. But if those visitors don’t want what you’re selling they’ll soon leave.

This article gives 5 simple steps to consider when creating your digital marketing strategy.

We ask what is digital marketing? How do you select your target market? What marketing channels should you choose and how do you manage them?

Read on to see how the right digital marketing campaign can grow your audience and boost your business.

What Is a Digital Marketing Campaign?

Digital marketing is a catch-all term used to describe how businesses use technology to promote themselves.

A campaign is a marketing effort that drives engagement, traffic, and conversions. It has clear objectives and should have a start and endpoint within a set budget.

The key to creating a good return on investment (ROI) is planning before execution.

Unfortunately, many companies don’t do the necessary research. With that in mind, here are 5 things to consider when asking how to build a digital marketing campaign.

1. Define KPIs and Target Market

Key Performance Indicators or KPIs measure how core business objectives are being met.

For digital marketing campaigns, KPIs could include:

  • Cost per lead acquisition
  • Conversions per site visits
  • Traffic count from organic search

The target market is the group of customers that the campaign aims to reach.

Demographics like age, marital status, gender, etc. narrow the target audience. Matching them with your products or services is a vital step in producing the best ROI.

Target the wrong customer base and the campaign is dead before it begins.

2. Set a Realistic Budget

Estimate your marketing budget before your campaign goes live puts a ceiling cap on spending. So how do you do this?

In our advertising costs blog article we examine average advertising costs for Google and Facebook.

The advice boils down to researching your competition and platform rates. From there you can calculate an average daily spend and multiply that to a monthly or yearly figure.

3. Choose Matching Marketing Channels

Should you choose Google Ads, SEO, social media advertising, or emails as your marketing channel?

The answer lies in your brand type and what you want to achieve.

For example, if you want to reach a younger demographic through social media choose Instagram. Facebook now attracts an older audience with 60% of baby boomers having accounts.

Targeting the right channel will boost your campaign.

4. Research Keywords

All SEO digital marketing campaigns should build on the search phrases or keywords their visitors use to find them.

Discovering the highest keyword volume will determine how ads are formed. Basing a campaign on phrases that are seldom used will result in failure.

Use services like Google’s Keyword Tool to see what your audience searches for. Then shape your marketing on those results.

5. Setup and Manage Marketing Platforms

You have your campaign mapped out but how do you implement it?

Setting up a Google Ads account or email list requires a lot of effort. You also need to learn marketing concepts for each platform. Facebook works differently than YouTube, for example.

Once your campaign is live you must manage it correctly.

That involves analyzing data like traffic and conversions. And tweaking daily budgets and keywords based on changes in competition.

The results are worth it but many businesses don’t have the time or skill to manage their campaigns effectively.

Your Digital Marketing Strategy Needs to Think Big and Bold

Building a results-focused digital marketing campaign takes careful planning.

You need to set the right key performance indicators and choose the correct market. Matching marketing channels and keyword research takes time and expertise. And setting-up and managing each platform is not to be taken lightly.

Big Bold Thinkers offers digital marketing services with targeted results at the core.

Our expert digital team can help create and manage your digital marketing ideas. With a solid foundation in SEO and social media, we can bring traffic to your digital doorstep. Then help convert those visitors into paying customers.

Contact us today to see how a big bold strategy can assist your business.

Google Analytics – Its Importance and Benefits

Posted on by Alice Momo

Why is using Google Analytics important?

Let’s say you have set up an exhibition. You have a place established and people have started visiting. Some are leaving early while some are staying back longer. Some have shown interest in the displays while some are just merely looking. Some came to know about you through colleagues while others saw the banners outside.

Now, if you had the data of the people visiting you – why some left early and why some didn’t show any interest, then you can easily figure out your areas of improvement and work towards setting up an exhibition that has people talking about it for days.

Similarly, if you can figure out ways to improve your website to earn more profits, wouldn’t that be sweet? Enter Google Analytics – a tool that lets you find out what is working well, and more importantly, what isn’t!

Google Analytics is not important if you don’t like improvement or growth.

What are the benefits of using Google Analytics?

Data

Data drives the world and Data is only useful if you can make sense of it. Google analytics presents the data in various forms: lists, charts, graphs, pie charts, spreadsheets, and more—allowing you to see how your website is performing.

Reporting

The platform not only gives you data but also lets you draw conclusions from it. By comparing metrics within the data, you can gather further insights and identify causes and correlations—another reason why Google Analytics can benefit your business.

Real-time observation

Whatever data you’ll see in Google analytics is ongoing and in real-time. This means that you can create reports, compare metrics, and check performance on whatever basis you want—hourly, daily, monthly, yearly. You can also take note of peak times for your target audiences, such as whether certain pages, SEM campaigns, or blog posts gather more interest at certain points of the week, month, or year.

It’s free

Google won’t charge you anything for using their platform. You don’t need to purchase, subscribe, or provide credit card information. All you need is a Gmail account and the ability to install a tracking code on your website, and you’re ready to go.

What are your best tips for getting the most out of Google analytics?

  1. Monitor bounce rate to increase your conversion rate.
  2. Identify slow-loading pages to enhance user experience.
  3. Use the internal site search to optimize your customers’ experience.
  4. Analyze your users’ behaviour to better meet their needs.
  5. Measure overall organic traffic to better understand your users
  6. Use reports of landing pages to directly improve conversions.
  7. Analyze different traffic sources to cover more ground.
  8. Define several conversion goals to get the complete picture of your user’s behaviour.
  9. Analyze social media performance to enhance conversion.
  10. Measure the quality of SEO traffic to further optimize your SEO strategy.

 What should small business owners know about Google analytics to be successful?

Leads, conversions and profits – that’s what every business owner, big or small is looking for! If used properly, Google Analytics can actively increase your conversion rates. There are direct and indirect benefits of using Google Analytics. And when you know exactly where and what to look at, you might be surprised by the insights you’ll get.

Using custom segments

Google Analytics has a feature called segments that make it easy to see how different groups of visitors interact with your website. Right out of the box, you can instantly check on several different default segments including mobile traffic, direct traffic, bounced sessions, converters and new users.

Setting up annotations

Google Analytics throws a lot of data at you, and it’s easy to forget about important findings. Annotations are essentially digital post-it notes that let you mark important notes on various traffic reports. You can mark the sudden surge in social media traffic, momentary dip in organic traffic etc. and come back to it whenever you want.

Comparing historical traffic

Google analytics lets you compare traffic from different periods of time. By regularly comparing your traffic, you can know where your business stands at that particular time and accordingly direct your team about the next step.

Apart from the aforementioned technical bit, you should know how to interpret the findings from Google analytics – only then can you turn failures into opportunities.

3 Uses for a Landing Page and How to Build One That Converts

Posted on by Alice Momo

Landing pages can be beneficial for businesses that are looking to convert more people into paying customers. But, that’s if you know how to use them properly and create one that’s easy for customers to understand.

There’s no need to continue searching the internet for landing page how to guides because we’re going to provide you with a brief guide right here on our site. Not only are we going to detail some of the benefits of using one, but we’re also going to let you in on how to create one that works effectively.

Read this post from start to finish for everything that you need to know.

1. Easy to Create

Contrary to what you might already believe about landing pages there easy to create. You’ve just got to understand all of the components that go into making the page and then you’ll be ready to start developing yours.

2. Informative

When you create ads for the services or products that your company offers, they have to be brief and to the point. But, when you’re using a landing page, any information that you weren’t able to put on the advertisement can be placed on the landing page for customers to continue reading.

3. Improves Customer Relationships

Another benefit of using landing pages is that it helps to create and build relationships between your company and potential clients. When you continue to develop these relationships, it ensures that you’ll have reoccurring clients in the future.

Now that you know three of the benefits of a landing page, it’s time to learn how to create one.

Reference or Transactional Page

Before you can begin building your page, the first thing that you need to do is decide whether you’re going to create a reference or transactional page. When you create a transactional page, it’s to persuade the reader to purchase your services or products.

But, when it’s a reference page, it’s being used to provide more information to the reader.

Decide on Your Target Audience

Once you’ve decided on this, the next thing that you need to do is decide on your target audience. These are the people that all of your advertisements seek to target whenever business content is released.

When you’re creating your landing page, you want to ensure that the page continues to speak to your target audience.

Use Correct SEO

The reason that you’re going to want to use the correct SEO keywords when creating your titles and headlines is that it will help your landing page to show up in more search engines. The more your content shows up in potential clients search engines, the more likely it is that they will click your link allowing you to turn them into paying customers.

This also means optimizing your tags that you’ll use in the meta descriptions and titles correctly.

Create a Strong Call to Action

Your call to action is what you will use to get customers to do what you want them to do. Whether that is to read more of the content that you’ve published or to purchase more of your products.

Without a call to action, it can leave clients confused about what you want them to do next.

Use Videos

People don’t have long attention spans; therefore, the best way to keep their attention is to use embedded videos in your content. When you’ create attention-grabbing videos, you’re sure to convert more customers.

And ensure that the videos you use in your ads or social media content are always linked to your landing page for easy access.

Landing Page 101

Tons go into creating a landing page properly. From ensuring that you use the proper SEO keyword optimization to creating engaging video content for potential customers to view.

If you’re looking to hire a company that can help you to create the best landing page possible, contact The Big Bold Blog. They’ve got the portfolio and experience to help you create a landing page that is going to turn readers into leads and eventually reoccurring clients.