Tag Archive for: Digital Marketing Chicago

Selecting the Perfect Platform for Your Business

/in /by

Harnessing the power of social media is vital for expanding your business’s online footprint. However, with the plethora of platforms available, it’s crucial to be strategic and selective rather than spreading yourself too thin. 

While a balanced approach to social media marketing is beneficial, we understand the importance of choosing the right social media platform to fucus on for your unique business needs. Here are our four tips to guide you through the selection process.

Understand Your Company’s Identity

Before diving into the world of social media, take a moment to reflect on your company’s identity and branding. Consider the nature of your business and the image you want to portray. For instance, if you’re a small business specializing in visually appealing products, platforms like Instagram or TikTok may be ideal due to their emphasis on imagery. 

Conversely, if you operate in the B2B sector and offer professional services, LinkedIn could be a better fit. Remember, each platform has its own unique strengths and audience demographics, so choose wisely to align with your brand’s ethos.

Conduct a Competitive Analysis

In a crowded social media landscape, standing out from the competition is essential. Conducting a thorough competitive analysis can provide invaluable insights into what platforms your competitors are utilizing effectively. By studying their presence, you can identify trends, gauge audience engagement, and determine which platforms resonate most with your target demographic. This knowledge will inform your decision-making process and help you carve out a distinct identity amidst the noise.

Familiarize Yourself with Platform Dynamics

Each social media platform operates within its own ecosystem, characterized by distinct communication styles and user behaviors. Take the time to research and understand the dynamics of each platform you’re considering. For example, Twitter thrives on real-time conversations and trending topics, making it ideal for fostering engagement and interaction. On the other hand, LinkedIn caters to professional networking and industry insights, offering a platform for thought leadership and brand credibility. By grasping these nuances, you can tailor your content and engagement strategies to resonate with each platform’s audience effectively.

Align with Your Marketing Strategy

A cohesive marketing strategy is the cornerstone of a successful social media presence. Define your objectives and align them with your chosen platforms accordingly. Whether your goal is to drive brand awareness, generate leads, or provide customer support, select platforms that complement your overarching marketing strategy. For instance, if content sharing and engagement are your priorities, platforms like Facebook or Instagram may be ideal. Conversely, if rapid customer response is essential, consider platforms like Twitter for its real-time communication capabilities.

Final Thoughts

At Onimod Global, we craft bespoke social media strategies tailored to your business objectives. With our knowledge, we can elevate your brand’s visibility and engagement across multiple platforms, helping ensure maximum impact and ROI.

Ready to take your social media marketing to the next level? Start the conversation with our digital marketers today and unlock the full potential of social media for your business growth.

How to Select a Digital Marketing Agency in 2024

/in /by

Online success starts with the right agency by your side. So how can you identify an agency that aligns with your brand’s unique requirements and objectives?

Embracing digital marketing is crucial for staying competitive, connecting with consumers, and achieving business goals in a rapidly evolving digital landscape. When investing in a digital marketing agency, it is crucial to choose an agency that effectively uses your budget and aligns with your business objectives. To avoid agencies that overpromise and underdeliver, consider our list of three essential skills and key warning signs to be aware of.

SEO & SEM Mastery

SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, stands as a cornerstone skill in the realm of digital marketing. Essential for the success of any campaign, SEO and content optimization can’t be overlooked. When evaluating a digital marketing agency, one of the key indicators of their proficiency in SEO is their own website. A well-optimized website not only demonstrates their skill but also serves as a testament to their effectiveness in this crucial area. This is a vital aspect to consider, as it directly reflects the agency’s ability to enhance your brand’s online presence.

In conjunction with SEO, Search Engine Marketing (SEM) plays a critical role in formulating an all-encompassing digital strategy. SEM focuses on leveraging data and content to drive strategy, ensuring a comprehensive approach to digital marketing. When scouting for a digital marketing agency, it’s important to look for those who excel in various facets of inbound marketing. This includes maintaining an active blog, having a responsive website design, intuitive site navigation, and implementing effective conversion strategies with clear calls to action. These elements are indicative of an agency’s capability to handle the complexities of both SEO and SEM, ensuring a robust and effective digital marketing strategy for your brand.

A Diverse and Skilled Team

A premier digital marketing agency distinguishes itself through a team skilled in various domains, encompassing design, development, SEO, content strategy, social media, and brand development. This breadth of knowledge is crucial for navigating the multifaceted world of digital marketing, ensuring that every aspect of a brand’s online presence is crafted with precision and professional insight. The agency’s strength lies in its ability to integrate these diverse skills, creating a cohesive and comprehensive marketing strategy that effectively promotes your brand across various digital platforms.

Central to this strategy is a focus on content marketing. In today’s digital landscape, content reigns supreme, and a successful agency must demonstrate prowess in creating high-quality, SEO-friendly content that resonates across multiple channels. This involves not just producing content but understanding how to develop strategies that engage and convert a wide range of audiences. Moreover, adaptability in content formats is key. Whether it’s crafting compelling videos, engaging social media posts, informative email campaigns, dynamic web content, insightful blogs, e-books, or in-depth white papers, an agency’s ability to tailor content to these diverse formats is essential. This versatility ensures that your brand’s message is not only heard but also resonates with your intended audience, regardless of the medium.

Technological Proficiency and Tool Utilization 

In the fast-paced world of digital marketing, an agency’s technological savvy is paramount. It’s essential for an agency to be adept at quickly learning and effectively utilizing the latest technologies to stay ahead in the competitive market. Alongside this technological agility, a deep familiarity with a variety of marketing tools is equally crucial. Proficiency in platforms such as WordPress, Google Analytics, Hubspot, Salesforce, and others is fundamental. This knowledge enables an agency to leverage these tools efficiently, optimizing marketing strategies and delivering measurable results for clients. The combination of technological expertise and tool familiarity is a key indicator of an agency’s capability to navigate the digital landscape successfully.

Three Red Flags to Avoid

Here are three warning signs to look for when searching for a digital marketing agency.

  • Lack of a Dedicated Account Manager: Consistency is key. Ensure the agency provides a specific individual or team for managing your account, rather than a revolving door of contacts.
  • Inaccessible Marketing Data: Transparency is critical. Avoid agencies that withhold analytics and data, as it’s vital for tracking marketing success.
  • Unrealistic Promises: Be wary of agencies making lofty promises, especially regarding immediate top search result placements. Seek those with realistic goals and strategies.

Final Thoughts

Navigating the digital marketing realm requires understanding both the essential qualities of a great agency and the red flags to avoid. At Onimod Global, we strive to align with these ideals, offering our knowledge in SEO, social media, content marketing, and more. We’re committed to enhancing your marketing effectiveness and driving success. 

Contact us today to discuss your digital marketing strategy.

Choosing Effective Content Marketing Topics

/in /by

When marketing your business with content creation, selecting topics that resonate with your audience is crucial, but relevance alone doesn’t guarantee success. It’s important to recognize that not all relevant topics align with your brand’s identity. 

The key to successful content marketing lies in understanding the competitive landscape and identifying topics that not only fit your brand but also enhance your return on investment (ROI). Let’s delve into how to pinpoint the right content marketing topics. 

Focus on What Your Audience Prefers

When deciding on a topic, it’s crucial to analyze comparative engagement metrics. For example, if you’re choosing between writing about the ‘Paleo’ diet and ‘Vegan’ diet, look at each topic’s likes, shares, comments, and overall interaction rates on various social platforms. The topic with consistently higher engagement is likely to resonate more with your audience.

Different topics may appeal to different segments of your audience. Consider the demographics of your followers when evaluating social media engagement. A topic that resonates well with a younger audience might not have the same impact on an older demographic.

Choose Less Competitive Topics

Opt for topics that align with your business objectives but face lower competition. This approach is akin to selecting long-tail keywords in SEO. Consider these tactics for high-competition topics:

  • Produce high-quality content like videos or original research.
  • Use paid promotions on social media.
  • Collaborate with influencers for enhanced distribution.
  • Develop a comprehensive promotion plan beyond the initial publication.

Leverage Multiple Mediums

One of the key strategies in content marketing is to leverage multiple mediums for content distribution. Different social networks have unique audiences and preferences, making it essential to tailor your content according to the platform where it will be shared. This approach ensures that your content resonates effectively with the audience on each specific network.

Each social media platform has its own user base and content trends. For example, visually appealing content may perform better on Instagram, while in-depth professional discussions might be more successful on LinkedIn. Furthermore, mobile app development topics might be more engaging on Facebook with a focus on visual demonstrations or infographics, and Twitter might be better suited for quick, insightful updates or discussions on low-code development. Understanding these nuances is crucial for tailoring content.

Create Multi-Purpose Content

Aiming for a balance between niche and broad topics is a calculated approach in content marketing. When you develop content, whether it be for a blog or social media, it’s essential to consider its adaptability across different formats. This not only caters to diverse audience preferences but also enhances the visibility of your content. For instance, a detailed blog post can be summarized in an infographic, or key points can be discussed in a YouTube video. This repurposing strategy not only ensures wider reach across different platforms but also significantly reduces the workload involved in content creation.

Final Thoughts

Developing a robust content marketing strategy involves strategic topic selection, understanding audience preferences, and continuous performance tracking. Experiment, measure, and adjust your strategy as needed to maintain an effective content marketing approach.

For the latest in digital marketing news and tips with Onimod Global, click here. Need assistance with content marketing or other digital marketing services? Contact us today!

Evaluating ROI from Social Media Efforts

/in /by

Social media stands tall as a prominent marketing tool. When executed correctly, it can significantly influence your business trajectory. Here’s your guide to engaging your audience, fostering partnerships, staying informed, and sharing industry knowledge.

Recognizing the value of your social media efforts is paramount. By understanding your social media ROI (Return on Investment), you can capitalize on effective strategies and sidestep the ineffective ones. For anyone seeking to enhance brand recognition, social media is non-negotiable. Let’s dive deeper into measuring and optimizing your social media ROI.

Deciphering Social Media ROI

To optimize your social media ROI, it’s vital to comprehend its true essence. The formula is straightforward: (return – investment) / investment x 100 = Social Media ROI. A positive ROI indicates profitable campaigns, while a negative one suggests a deficit.

Bear in mind, that the purpose of calculating ROI varies across organizations. It’s aligned with your company’s specific goals, whether they involve acquiring new followers, enhancing click-through rates, boosting conversions, or gathering complete lead-generation data.

Crucial Metrics to Determine Social Media ROI

Your social media strategy is the backbone of your business. Without it, you’re just flailing around in the dark, hoping that things work out. Here are the metrics you should be monitoring:

Engagement: This involves monitoring interactions with your content. Indicators include clicks, likes, shares, and brand mentions. A significant portion of content creators use engagement to evaluate their content’s performance.

Reach: Quantifies the audience’s exposure to your content on social media. Though vital, it can be trickier to measure than engagement.

Leads: Determining the origins of your leads and the content that magnetizes them is essential. Link your campaigns to your undertakings for optimum ROI.

Conversions: Employ UTM parameters in your post links, allowing you to monitor clicks for every campaign and platform.

Effective implementation of these metrics steers your business towards a promising ROI.

Efficient ROI Tracking

After defining your objectives, it’s essential to establish an ROI tracking system. Numerous platforms can assist you, but Google Analytics stands out. By setting up goals and event tracking, you can effortlessly monitor your ROI. Being user-friendly, Google Analytics offers comprehensive guides on leveraging its capabilities. And here’s the cherry on top: Onimod Global is a proud Google partner. This partnership ensures top-tier online marketing strategies, underpinned by Google’s esteemed products.

As the role of social media in consumer behavior magnifies, marketers must adapt to its evolution. No matter what your ROI percentage is, there is always room for improvement. Some last key things to remember are:

  • Know Your Audience: Ensure your content resonates with them.
  • Innovate: Prioritize quality over quantity and craft captivating content.
  • Refine and Elevate: Upgrade your posts with fresh imagery, keywords, and headlines.

Final Thoughts

Our mission at Onimod Global is to synchronize your content marketing endeavors with tangible business outcomes. With our data-centric strategies, we offer insights into your audience’s preferences, your competition’s strengths, and potential industry leadership opportunities.

Stationed in Chicago, our in-house team is well-versed across multiple marketing verticals, ensuring we cater to all your needs. Our commitment to excellence, updated knowledge, and unmatched customer service sets us apart.

Contemplating your digital footprint? Need strategic guidance? Reach out to us today.

Getting Started With Social Media Design

/in , , , , /by

Strong visual content on social media gives people a reason to follow, like, comment, and eventually buy from you. How can you make sure your design attracts the right audience? Let’s take a look…

The digital world is constantly changing. With all the new social media platforms, those that have been around for years are evolving, and new ones are popping up every day.

Whether your business is B2B or B2C, it’s important to have an effective visual strategy on social media. Graphics—such as photos, images and infographics—take up a lot more space than quotes and texts on any social media newsfeed. So how can you leverage graphics to make sure your business stands out online?

Here’s how to improve your social media visual strategy.

Optimize Your Images For Different Platforms

In order to maintain a social media presence, it’s important to post regularly across a variety of platforms. Posts with images get more engagement than links and text, so keeping your visuals looking their best is critical to an effective social media strategy.

For the most part, each platform requires images of different dimensions. To make this easy, apps like Canva and Adobe Stock have a selection of social media templates formatted to the optimum size for each network. And for your own unique designs, it’s easy to create an original template using custom dimensions.

Make Your Branding Cohesive

Consistency is the key ingredient to brand recognition and success. Think Coca Cola’s vibrant red, and Nike’s “Just Do It.” These brands have all mastered consistent branding by using the same font, color or image in all of their designs.

You want to maintain consistency across all design elements and branded materials so that your target audience can clearly recognize who it’s coming from. Whatever graphics you create and share should essentially be an extension of the same brand they see on your website. Be sure to incorporate your brand’s colors and fonts into your designs and avoid anything content that doesn’t accurately reflect your brand.

Create Valuable Content

The key to successful social media marketing is value and variety. You want to post content that is both valuable to your audience, as well as easy for them to share with their friends. There are many different types of content that can be shared, so don’t restrict yourself to one or two templates and make sure everything you post adds value to your site and for users. You want more valuable content to gain wider reach across social media platforms, resulting in more potential traffic to your website!

Consider posting the following:

  • Industry tips
  • Event Posts
  • Infographics

Create Consistency

Using a consistent template for graphics is important, especially if you’re a brand that’s trying to create an image across all of your social media platforms. Because social gives designers a much smaller canvas to work with, overcrowding can happen fast. You want to avoid overcrowding because it hinders user experience and can make it difficult to get your message across. You can avoid this by:

  • Using large illustrations 
  • Limiting typeface to 2 fonts 
  • Sticking with 2-3 colors 
  • Utilizing white space to contrast the main bold, colorful element

More from Onimod Global 

It’s important to stay on top of your digital marketing strategy so you can stay ahead of the curve.

At Onimod Global, we offer high-end design and branding for your business. We know how to take your brand from good to great! We can help you create an amazing visual identity and marketing materials that will help you stand out from the crowd and make sure you’re seen by your target audience.

Whether you’re a small business or global enterprise, we’ll work with you to make sure your brand represents who you are as a company and where you want to go next. Contact us today to get started.

How to Enhance Your SEO with Keywords

/in , , , , /by

If you don’t understand how to use keywords for search engine optimization (SEO), you’re losing business. Follow these suggestions and watch your website rise the ranks to the top of search-engine results. 

Keywords are words and phrases typed into search engines like google, to find information on a certain topic. Keywords are known as SEO keywords, keyphrases and search queries. While they may have different names, they all do the same thing. If you want to enhance your SEO, keywords are the way to go.

Here is what you need to know about keywords and how to use them in order to get your content ranking at the top of Google’s results.

What Are Keywords Known For?

Keywords are essentially the foundation of SEO and pay-for-click (PPC) in marketing campaigns. If you want to enhance your SEO, then ranking at the top of Google should be your number one priority. Having targets for a keyword can bring you quality website traffic that will generate into leads, and hopefully new clients.

If your marketing budget allows, invest in some pay-per-click ads to get your website organic results. With Google Ads, advertisers bid to appear at the top of search results for specific keywords. Keywords that signal someone is ready to buy could be good choices for a paid search campaign.

A good example would running an ad for a home appliances business. In that case, the keyword “washer for sale in Chicago” is a term that someone close to buying would search for. On the other hand, running a search like “best washers” is for someone just beginning their search on the buying cycle. Overall, it would be better to use an SEO keyword that would optimize a blog post around. 

How to Find Keywords for SEO

The keywords you choose can either improve your SEO or do the opposite. If you use keywords that are too competitive, you will have a hard time getting a good ranking in Google. If you optimize your website around keywords that your target audience does not search for you will end up with traffic that won’t generate the leads you want. If your business is new, you want to shift your focus to long-tail keywords. These are simply specific search terms with low search volume.

The benefits of using long-tail keywords is that it tends to convert at a much higher rate than high search volume terms do. This is due to people using long-tail keywords to buy something specific. Another good example of this would be using a keyword like, “Volkswagen Dealership in Chicago.” Its a specific keyword with a specific location.

Qualities of a Keyword

When doing keyword research, what are some of the things you pay attention to? These qualities say a lot about how your keywords will perform. The overall main qualities of a keyword should include the following:

  • Search Volume
  • Competition
  • Cost-per-click
  • Word Count

These 4 qualities all do different things for you in terms of keyword searches. Let’s break down what each one mean and how they can benefit your SEO strategy. 

  1. Search volume relates to the number of times a keyword is search in google each month. This helps you estimate how much traffic you can get if you rank keywords in Google.
  2. Competition relates to the more sought-after keywords that are likely used on many websites but you’re competing to be at the top, both organically and paid. A great way to take on this quality is by having keyword difficulty and competitive density. Keyword Difficulty helps you manage your SEO campaign, and Competitive Density helps you prioritize your advertising campaign.
  3. Cost-per-click shows you how much it costs an adversiter every time someone clicks on their ad after doing a keyword search. If you are planning an ad campaign, evaluating cost-per-click of your target keywords is essential when you’re trying to estimate how much the campaign will cost you.
  4. Word Count is the number of words that make up 1 keyword. If we go back to the example of “Volkswagen dealership in Chicago” that keyword would have the word count of four. Word count is a helpful way to narrow your research. The higher the word count, the more specific the search.

Last Thoughts

Keywords are extremely beneficial to anyone’s SEO strategy when used correctly. By following the steps above, you are putting yourself in a great position to outrank your competitors.

Onimod Global is your Chicago-based, in-house marketing team, your partner experts for specific marketing verticals or some nice balance in between. We excel in customer service and will teach you the most relevant and up-to-date digital marketing skills. From social media to SEO and paid search, you will have the tools to ensure your business succeeds online.

Have questions about creating your online presence and need help strategizing? Contact us here today.

Google Maps Marketing Strategy 101

/in , /by

Google Maps is one of the first things that people think of when you hear the phrase “local SEO.” When we think of any business that will have what I need, whether it’s furniture or food or office supplies, Google Maps is the go to. I know that the search results have plenty of information to pick the best option with Google reviews, star ratings, photos, and location information.

We’re here to give an overview of Google My Business and how you can move up in Google Maps rankings. These tools will give your Google My Business posts the ability to get additional reach locally. 

 

Google My Business Overview

First thing’s first, you need a Google My Business listing. Here is a simple checklist with everything you’ll need to include: 

  • You’re using your legal business name
  • You’ve chosen the primary category most relevant to your business and have added additional categories (if applicable)
  • Correct address is shown (if you’re not a service area business)
  • Address is hidden if you’re an service area business and service areas have been designated
  • Hours of operation have been added
  • Local phone number is being used
  • Website link is correct 
  • Appointment link has been added (if applicable)
  • Products have been added (if retail)
  • Services have been added (if you offer services)
  • Applicable attributes have been added
  • Business description has been added
  • Opening date has been added

This is going to be the first impression anyone has of your business, so it’s important to have all information accurate and up to date. Mike Blumenthal even coined the phrase “Google My Business is your new homepage” back in 2015.

 

Increasing Google Maps Rankings

Now that the basics are out of the way, you can begin a strategy for increasing your Google Maps rankings. Although marketing on Google Maps is free, you can boost your business’ visibility in search results with local search ads. 

With the use of these ads, you can push your business listing to the top of search queries for keywords relevant to your business. Google Maps ads use location targeting, so the most relevant audience in your near vicinity will show up for location-relevant searches. These ads appear in desktop and mobile searches. We recommend implementing these ads into your Google Ads strategy if you haven’t already done so. 

 

More From Onimod Global

As trusted Google experts, our team is here to help with holistic digital marketing strategies including all Google Ads, because our goal is to make your business more successful. To get in contact with an audit on your digital presence, get in touch with us here. 

Google To End Expanded Text Ads in 2022

/in , /by

You heard it here first, Google is officially set to sunset their expanding text ads, or ETAs, in July of 2022. According to an announcement from Sylvanus Bent, Product Manager, Google Ads, advertisers will no longer be able to create new ETAs or edit existing ETAs in Google Ads beginning in July 2022. “Your existing expanded text ads will continue to serve alongside responsive search ads, and you’ll still see reports on their performance going forward. Additionally, you’ll be able to pause and resume your expanded text ads or remove them if needed. You’ll also still be able to create and edit call ads and Dynamic Search Ads,” said Bent.

 

What to do in the meantime?

We know this news is coming pretty far in advance. What we recommend for now is to use ETA info for RSAs in the transition, which is also recommended by product managers at Google Ads. “To prepare for this change, we recommend that you have at least one responsive search ad in every ad group in your Search campaigns by June 30, 2022,” Bent suggested. Google’s announcement also has already included ways that advertisers can repurpose their ETA content for RSAs. Recommendations from Google’s team include the following:

  • Look through your ads and evaluate their success based on incremental impressions, clicks, and conversions your ad groups and campaigns receive
  • Repurpose high-performing content from your expanded text ads and focus on Ad strength
  • Pin headlines or descriptions to specific positions in your responsive search ads

This new Google update will mainly affect anyone in highly regulated fields.These are currently the industries that benefit from ETAs and will be the most impacted starting next year. 

 

Why this Extended Text Ads news is relevant 

This new update from Google is the latest move in order to make a big push in the automation through their ad products. In the announcement from Google, their team explains, “15% of search queries every day are new searches we’ve never seen before” and therefore “Automation is key to keeping pace with these trends.” While RSAs are in use by many advertisers, we also understand the control over ads that ETAs provide as well as other capabilities. The future phase-out of ETAs means advertisers are moving even further away from direct control over their accounts and having to work with the Google Ads machine learning and AI.

Before the full phase-out is complete, our experts recommend testing your ETA ad pieces in RSAs and figure out what works best so you’re not cut off completely from new ad creation when Google Ads stops allowing new ETAs. 

 

More from Onimod Global

As this is news almost a year in advance, the story is evolving and our experts at Onimod Global will keep you up to date on the latest information regarding expanding text ads and any other Google Ads updates to come. At Onimod Global, our experts have endless expertise when it comes to the latest news on Google updates. We’re here to discover what is the right and relevant information to make your ads successful. Got questions about ETAs, Google Ads, or want to learn more about us? Contact us here today. 

Optimize Your SEO With User-Generated Content

/in , /by

User-generated content, or UGC, has been very successful in terms of being effective in creating a highly successful, long-term SEO and conversion strategy. UGC can improve KPIs for your search marketing:

  • Increase your page rankings
  • Increase Google Ads click-through rates up to 20%
  • Increase organic traffic up to 400%
  • Increase conversion rate up to 75%

UGC should be part of your 2021 SEO strategy, and Onimod Global experts are here to help you discover why.

Why is the impact so great?

Any content coming from consumers talking about or reviewing a product is immediately seen as more trustworthy. For example, 88 percent of consumers trust online reviews written by other consumers as much as they trust suggestions from their personal network. Content from a consumer ultimately is more relatable, therefore signalling a psychological response called “social proof” which makes people assume that others’ actions reflect correct behavior for a situation. For example, if we see someone go through something negative such as slipping on a patch of ice on a sidewalk, we will likely learn not to follow those same actions.

We are also influenced very much by the opinion of others. So if you didn’t see it directly, but you hear from a friend at school that the sidewalk is slippery, you are likely to avoid the sidewalk and the icy patch. We are simply more open to accepting the opinion of our peers.

Switching this from ice patches back to marketing, from a customer point of view, social proof helps to increase conversion rates by building trust. A brand telling you that their products work, they’re a great price, they are quality material is great, but the opinion of someone else outside of the organization carries a different weight and is more believable.

Check out this graph from Search Engine Journal comparing conversion rates with and without UGC:

It is evident that there is a strong correlation between the use of UGC and converting users into paying customers.

How UGC helps with SEO

Step 1 for a lot of buying processes begins with Google, and the Seach Engine Journal found that organic page visits greatly increased over the span of nine months by simply adding customer reviews to website pages.

  1. UGC provides new and relevant content to your site. There is without a doubt a high need of relevant authentic content that your customer base can relate to.  The practice of displaying UGC on the website demonstrates that brands aren’t just talking at customers, rather they show that customers have a way to dialogue with the brand.
  2. UGC helps naturally rank your pages for long-tail keywords. Long-tail keywords are specific search phrases that are much easier to rank highly for due to the low search competition. For example, if you’re a skin care brand trying to rank for “skin cleanser”, you’re facing a large amount of competition. Instead, “skin cleanser for dry mature skin” potentially may have much less competition and be searched by users with a specific intent to find and buy this product. UGC will include this type of verbiage and therefore allow you to gain insight on what exactly is the pain-points for consumers.
  3. Ideal for manual and automatic optimizations. Automatic search updates with crawlers scope out things like customer reviews and automatically push your page higher in search results. In addition to the automatic updates, Google and other search engine companies employ search quality raters to manually evaluate websites. Things that they look for are rating for key credits like mastery of the topic, authority of the author, and truthfulness in content, which can easily be obtained from your customers’ content.

More from Onimod Global

Onimod Global is looking forward to the future and helping your business reach your full digital potential with SEO and user-generated content. Interested in growing your digital presence for your company? Reach out to us here!

Onimod Global releases the latest digital marketing news and essential marketing tips every Tuesday and Thursday! To catch up on the top digital marketing news and trends, click here. To find out more about who we are and what we do, click here.

SEO Tips for Beginners

/in /by

It’s no secret that SEO (Search Engine Optimization) can be extremely beneficial to a website’s and business’s overall success. But getting there can be complex, especially for beginners, and it can be easy to feel overwhelmed. A simple Google search for “SEO” returns almost 500 million results, which is more information than anyone could read in a lifetime. On top of that much of the information is now either out-of-date or not relevant. In reality, there are quite a few simple things you can start with to begin a highly effective SEO strategy. Here are 5 SEO tips for beginners. 

Research and use relevant keywords

It makes sense that keywords are key when it comes to SEO success. Think about what your audience would be searching for on your website. What is their search intent? What are they really looking for? Understanding search intent is extremely beneficial when it comes to planning site content and your SEO approach. 

There are a number of tools and strategies to use to ensure we get a good selection of keywords together. Start by brainstorming potential keywords. Just simply write down everything that is relevant., such as services you offer, products you have, close locations, etc. You can also use a keyword research tool to help you identify new keywords. Google offers a tool that forms part of its Ads PPC service, but there are other providers that offer free and paid variations. Lastly, do your own keyword searches on search engines. When you do a search in a search bar, there will be a list of suggestions at the bottom of the page. You can add any relevant suggestions to your list. 

Optimize titles and meta descriptions

Now that you have your keyword list, you can use them to optimize your titles, descriptions and other forms of content. You want to get keywords into the title of pages, but in a natural way. Remember that these show up in search results, so aim to clearly indicate what the page is about and entice users to click on it. Try to include where, what and who if possible. 

Next we want to optimize the meta description. A page’s description doesn’t have as big of an impact on SEO, but it can still help. The meta description should explain the content on your page and further convince a user to click. 

Optimize for mobile

Almost 60% of searches are done from a mobile device. Google favors sites that are mobile friendly. Back in 2019, Google declared that “mobile-first indexing will be enabled by default for all new, previously unknown to Google Search, websites.” This means Google now crawls the mobile versions of sites first, before desktop various. And eventually, Google won’t index your site at all if it isn’t mobile friendly. So how do you go about optimizing your site for mobile? Here are some quick tips: 

  • Keep page load time down 
  • Make reading and navigation easy 
  • Make it responsive to smaller screen size, meaning there’s no pinching or zooming required

Create content, then optimize it

You don’t want to start your content by picking out your keywords and massaging content to match. Write content you’d like to read, things that are interesting, useful, fun and engaging; then optimize the content for SEO. Once you’ve fully written the content, go back and pick out places to insert keywords. Don’t forget to also optimize: 

  • Titles 
  • Descriptions 
  • Header tags 
  • Images 

Build relevant links

Link building carries a bad reputation due to marketers that use black hat strategies for SEO. But when done correctly, link building is extremely helpful when it comes to driving visibility, especially for competitive keywords. Developing this requires having the right kind of links pointing to your site. These links help Google and other search engines determine your relative importance and to order search results using these metrics. Google has commented on this point by saying, 

“Links help our crawlers find your site and can give your site greater visibility in our search results. When returning results for a search, Google uses sophisticated text-matching techniques to display pages that are both important and relevant to each search. Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote by page A for page B. Votes cast by pages that are themselves ‘important’ weigh more heavily and help to make other pages ‘important.’”

This can be the most difficult part of SEO, but there are some strategies to use to gain safe backlinks to help improve your visibility in search results. You can utilize highly credible directory sites, as well as a competitor link analysis to help identify new link opportunities. 

Final Thoughts

Having success with SEO isn’t something you can do overnight. It can take months and even years to create a site and content strategy that a search engine will favor. Often with SEO it is 20% of the effort that will get you 80% of the results and for most small businesses this is a great starting point that will help your site be more visible in organic search.

More from Onimod Global

Onimod Global releases the latest digital marketing news and essential marketing tips every Tuesday and Thursday! To catch up on the top digital marketing news and trends, click here. To find out more about who we are and what we do, click here.