Tag Archive for: seo

Mastering Storytelling Content in 2022

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A well known shift in content marketing over the past 5 years has taken the form of storytelling. At its most basic definition, the digital storytelling process involves using a mixture of content and digital media to bring a narrative to life. Consumers have shown that a product or service that offers an experience is much more attractive to them. Storytelling takes content marketing to a whole new level where a customer is understood, inspired, compelled to use their imagination.

Principal analyst Brian Solis with Alimeter Group shares with MarketingLand what marketers must know today about the gap between content marketing and storytelling.

What should businesses know about storytelling?

Brian says: There are some common pillars of quality storytelling — and it all starts with knowing your audience, what they love/don’t love, what they value, etc.

Aside from the seven common plots of story, there are pillars that resonate with certain audiences, depending on their goals and yours. These include inspiration, usefulness, importance and inclusivity, just to name a few — and these apply to content marketing, too.

How does storytelling make an impact on digital marketing? 

Digital storytelling is now crucial to a successful digital marketing campaign tying together several forms of media; social media at the forefront of this campaign. In any successful marketing campaign, the goal is to achieve wider engagement from your target audience and build up a loyal customer base that identify with your brand and cling to your product or service for longer. Storytelling in digital marketing addresses the needs of a fast-paced society in which people cut through a lot of ‘fluff content’ and look to receive information and consume content as fast as possible.

Capturing the attention of potential customers is an important step towards reaching one of your main goals – gaining your customers’ loyalty. That is why storytelling has become so important to the success of digital marketing. It sets apart vibrant brands from simple businesses and loyal consumers from one-time, stop-in shoppers.

Here are three ways storytelling impacts digital marketing and how you can benefit from it:

1. Build up trust with your audience

Traditional boring and straight-forward marketing doesn’t help you form a bond with consumers. Instead, it’s information-packed content overwhelming or boring the user and often reads like assembly instructions. Storytelling is much more intriguing and urges people to follow along engaging with the story. It addresses consumer pain points on a deeper, more intimate level and doesn’t give off the impersonal and cold vibes of a hard sell.

2. Connecting with your target audience

Most consumers have mastered an art of their own — ignoring sales pitches. These days, people are inundated with marketing ads. This has conditioned the brain to skim information and dismiss anything unattractive, simple, and mundane. Digital storytelling, however, can engage them in a manner that leaves them more receptive to marketing efforts.

3. Branding with a genuine meaning

Actions speak much louder than words for customers of 2022. Using digital storytelling to demonstrate how your company is dedicated to your mission, as well as your customers, can help you prove that you’re in it for the right reasons. Taking people along on your journey to show step by step how your business evolved, the experiences you’ve had, and how this helped you provide solutions to their problems will capture your audience’s attention and personify your business.

More from Onimod Global

In addition to storytelling content in 2022 and other digital marketing updates, we will continue to share case studies and the latest SEO updates to help you drive your business. Our goal is to ensure we help improve your marketing and drive success.

At Onimod Global, we have expertise expertise when it comes to all things SEO, general social media advertising, and digital marketing. We would love to work with you and assist with your company’s content creation needs. Got questions about content creation or want to learn more about us? Contact us here today.

Google Introduces New Search Console URL Inspection API

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Yesterday Google introduced the new search console URL inspection API. This will give programmatic access to URL-level data for properties you manage in Search Console.

According to Google’s news release on the topic, “the Search Console APIs are a way to access data outside of Search Console, through external applications and products. Developers and SEO tools already use the APIs to build custom solutions to view, add, or remove properties and sitemaps, and to run advanced queries on Search performance data.”

Google will be providing a new tool with the new URL Inspection API for developers. The tool will assist in debugging and optimizing their pages. You can request the data Search Console has about the indexed version of your URL. The API is going to then return the indexed information currently available in the URL Inspection tool.

 

How to use the new URL Inspection API

In order to learn how to use the new API, Google also has provided the developer documentation for the API which you can find here. The request parameters are a combination of the URL you are wanting to inspect from yours or your client’s site, and the URL of the property as defined in Search Console.

The response includes analysis results containing information from Search Console, including AMP, index status, rich search results and the mobile-friendliness of the URL.

The Google release also explains how “once you make the API call, you will get a response with all relevant results. If the request fails you would receive an error message instead. If a specific analysis result is missing from the response, it means the analysis was not available for the URL inspected. Here’s an example of the response you’ll get from the API.”

 

Final Thoughts

The entire release of the new URL Inspection API can be found on Google’s blog. In addition to Google news and other digital marketing updates, we will continue to share case studies and the latest SEO updates to help you drive your business. Our goal is to ensure we help improve your marketing and drive success.

At Onimod Global, we have endless experience and expertise when it comes to all things SEO, general social media advertising, and digital marketing. Got questions about Facebook advertising or want to learn more about us? Contact us here today.

3 Simple Ways Blog Posts Can Improve SEO Results

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Search engine optimization, or SEO, is incredibly important for marketers which we often write about here at Onimod Global. When you optimize your web pages — including the blog posts in your blog or news section — you’re creating more visibility for your website and allowing people who are using search engines (like Google) to find your product or service. But does your blog content really help your business organically rank on search engines?

You may have a blog, but unfortunately very few organizations know how to fully capitalize on their content in order to maximize SEO results. Check out these three simple ways a blog can improve your website’s organic visibility, traffic and results.

 Reach a specific audience with each post

Start every blog with a very specific audience in mind, and think to yourself questions that users on your website may be looking for. This allows marketers to create content that is optimized for specific customers and contains target keywords related to specific needs and solutions. Let’s say for example you are a CBD brand, think of questions may users have about your product where you can easily reach them. Perhaps one of those questions may be, what is CBD and how is it useful in products? We suggest to use a title for your blog encompassing that question while the blog post content does a thorough deep dive on the subject providing useful information. The title of your blog post could be “Everything To Know About CBD & CBD Products” or “CBD 101: What Is It and Why Use It?”

These titles encompass the questions your user may ask while also coming from a credible source. This can have a massive impact with SEO results with just this small detail in mind while you’re composing and concepting new posts.

Use Recent Data

Google and other smart engines are quite intelligent in the sense that they can even recognize when data you refer to or a website you are referencing is outdated and affect your SEO. Recent data also gives your users the most accurate and relevant information anyways which will result in a positive reader experience.

When you include a link to a credible site that has original, up-to-date data, the search engine interprets that this site is helpful and relevant to your readers (which is a plus for that other site as well actually). At the same time, you’re also telling the search engine that this type of data is in some way related to the content you publish. Over time, your readers will come to appreciate the content which can be confirmed using other metrics like increased time on page or lower bounce rate.

Share Your Blog Posts On Social Media

An often overlooked advantage, sharing your blog posts on social media requires time but also gets visibility of your content out to your audience in a multitude of ways. This in turn improves the engagement and traffic of the blog, but also has the potential to grow your social accounts as well.

Several other benefits include:

  1. It keeps your social media sites current and relevant.
  2. It helps keep your audience engaged.
  3. Because social signals are included in the ranking algorithm, it improves SEO results.
  4. Social links help to increase referral traffic.

Just remember to include keywords you are targeting within the social media posting as these social signals can help with rankings.

Final Thoughts

In addition to blog post optimization and other digital marketing updates, we will continue to share case studies and the latest SEO updates to help you drive your business. Our goal is to ensure we help improve your marketing and drive success.

At Onimod Global, we have endless experience and expertise when it comes to all things SEO, general social media advertising, and digital marketing. Got questions about Facebook advertising or want to learn more about us? Contact us here today.

3 Ways To Check Your Website’s Technical SEO Health

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Regardless of how great your content may be, the ranking of your website and its traffic will suffer if there are issues with your technical SEO. This is why it’s crucial to perform routine SEO health checks so you can stay up to date on the performance of your website and constantly optimize for the best performance.

Website crawlers – to know them is to love them

A Web crawler, sometimes called a spider or spiderbot and often shortened to crawler, is an Internet bot that systematically browses the World Wide Web and that is typically operated by search engines for the purpose of Web indexing.

It’s one of the most powerful assets you have when working on your website and trying to optimize it. Your website links are an essential tool to use in determining what pages are the most important content to your target audience, and not all of your links are created equal.

What that means is essentially there are ways to heavily optimize and influence what Google sees as the most important pages of your site. It also will help Google and other search engines to direct traffic to certain areas of your website.

Ensure search engines are rendering the page correctly

Crawlers are essential to ensuring your pages are rendering correctly. If your website’s content isn’t optimized for these bots, it won’t show up in your bots and may not render correctly. There are ways to avoid this, and that includes marketers presenting their content in a format that both searchers and crawlers can view.

“Things that require user clicks and user involvement will be difficult, if not impossible, for bots to reach,” Ashley Berman Hale from SMX Next said. “Go to the most popular pages and enclose important content in Google quotes to see if they’re included.”

Another thing you can do to improve the technical SEO is to see the rendering of your pages is to use Google’s mobile-enabled tools to take a screenshot of what everything looks like.

Review indexing for your site’s pages

If you find that Google and other search engines are crawling and that they’re correctly rendering your sites, check all of the indexed pages. A page is indexed by Google if it has been visited by the Google crawler (“Googlebot”), analyzed for content and meaning, and stored in the Google index. This gives you the clearest indication of the state of your site, highlighting selected pages, excluded pages, and why search engines made those decisions.

“You can check everything that Google sees, which is insightful,” said Hale, “ While half of our battle is getting the good stuff into the index, the other half can be getting the bad stuff out.”

More from Onimod Global

These simple and effective ways to check on the health of your technical SEO can make the biggest difference in the performance of your website. We will continue to share case studies and the latest SEO updates to help you drive your business. Our goal is to ensure we help improve your marketing and drive success. Our mission is to ensure we help improve your marketing and drive success.

At Onimod Global, we have endless experience and expertise when it comes to all things SEO, general social media advertising, and digital marketing. Got questions about Google display ads or want to learn more about us? Contact us here today.

Small business digital marketing trends for 2022

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Small business gang: 2021 is finally coming to an end! Are you ready to take on 2022 and looking to finish the year strong? Whether you’re preparing your website and orders for the last minute holiday rush or prepping for your celebrations, the close of the year is the best time to being your digital marketing strategy for 2022 and looking at business tips for the new year.

That’s why experts at Onimod Global compiled a list of 2022 small business digital marketing trends to consider during your 2022 strategy planning so that you can stay up-to-date on what is the most crucial to keep in mind when we head into next year.

Incorporate live chat into your website

This is no ground breaking trend, however we see it becoming a crucial addition to your website in 2022 especially for small businesses. One area small business has always had the upper hand is extra care and attentiveness to your customers. This is where live chat steps in to attend to customers questions and concerns real time. Email marketing may get lost or left unread, and phone calls may feel like a heavy time consuming burden, but live chat services make it easier for customers to find the solutions they need while feeling like personalized content.

Some major uses and benefits of live chat include:

  • Direct messaging – This is an opportunity to really build up your brand’s voice by implementing specific personalized content and messaging points directly into your live chat.
  • Instant response – No hold music, and no waiting for a new email—live chat is solely quick answers to a mobile device that answers your customers’ questions in a few minutes.
  • Increase sales –  A recent survey showed that 77% of online shoppers want to talk to a real person before making a purchase. As a marketer, give your existing customers what they want with a direct line to a sales representative. By meeting the needs of consumers, your live chat service has the potential to offer a serious return on investment.

Build up those Google Business customer reviews

Nothing says “yummy restaurant” like a place that comes up on Google Maps with 1,000 reviews at 4.7 stars. It is safe to assume that almost all consumers you have will look to reviews before interacting with a company, trusting the first-hand experience and unbiased views of previous customers. No matter what your small business sells or provides, you can most definitely benefit from using reviews in your digital marketing materials and prioritizing the positive word-of-mouth recommendations.

How to bring in reviews, you may ask?

  • Request reviews – Some customers are happy to share their positive opinions without being prompted, but others might need an extra push and reminder to help you. Create a review prompt to send to customers after their purchases or to have place in a brick and mortar location of your store. Consider developing an open-ended survey for those interested in sharing more details about their experience.
  • Use testimonials – With a plethora of customer reviews, pick and choose the best ones to implement in your marketing materials. You can place testimonials front and center on your website, or use them in a variety of social media posts to let the world know what everyone thinks of your business.
  • Respond to your reviews – Reviews are a two-way street believe it or not. Customers often pose questions, concerns, or critiques about your business, so don’t let their messages go unattended or unanswered. We recommend to respond to your reviews to show your customers that you take their opinions seriously.

Hear us out.. TikTok as a main social media platform

We hear you, it’s a rather intimidating platform that looks like a lot of intense video editing skills needed and constant content creation. However, this really isn’t the case. An easy-to-use and user friendly platform, we see it as a key social media trend for creative skills and collaboration amongst young audiences. Its fast-paced content consuming nature keeps users engaged for relatively long periods, with users spending an average of 52 minutes per day on the app. While it does take time to create quality and engaging content, it is an excellent way for your small business to gain popularity and recognition. This platform alone helped so many small businesses thrive during the thick of the pandemic, and is only growing in popularity.

Final thoughts

In addition to digital marketing trends for small businesses, SEO and other digital marketing tips, we will continue to share case studies and the latest digital marketing news and tips to help you drive your company’s success. Our goal is to ensure we help improve your digital marketing.

At Onimod Global, we have endless experience and expertise when it comes to all things SEO, general social media advertising, and digital marketing. Got questions about how to develop a digital marketing strategy for 2022 or want to learn more about us? Contact us here today.

 

Google Ads brings image extensions to desktop

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New search engine update coming your way in just a few weeks. The new Google update will be bringing image extensions to desktop devices before the end of 2021. In addition, advertisers that are already using image extensions for mobile devices will automatically show those extensions on desktop. Google Ads will begin to roll out image extensions to desktop devices in the coming weeks, the company announced last week. This update will not only be added to static images, but also apply to all dynamic image extensions.

Why marketers should care.

It really depends, however image extensions can be extremely helpful in making your ads more visually appealing, which might encourage visitors to click on them. Before the end of 2021 and available the start of 2022, image extensions will also be available on desktop which will enable you to show any images that are relevant to users whether they’re at home or on the go.

If you’re already running image extensions on mobile, they’ll automatically show on desktop devices as this update rolls out, so make sure to monitor performance so that you can assess whether this is something that’s worthwhile for your brand.

Prior to this update, the images attached to ads would only show on mobile devices. For advertisers that are already using image extensions, their ads will automatically show these images on desktop devices as this update rolls out.

Desktop device performance can be broken out by segmenting your data by “Device.”

Dynamic image extensions are also expanding. 

This update also brings dynamic image extensions, which automatically select the most relevant image from your ad’s landing page, to desktop devices. In addition, these are also now available for all languages.

Google has also added a free, searchable library of stock images to help advertisers source visuals. To access the library, select “stock images” when you’re asked to choose an image for your image extension. Stock images can be cropped to a square or landscape format from directly within Google Ads before adding it to your image extension.

Final thoughts

In addition to Google Ads updates, general SEA and other digital marketing tips, we will continue to share case studies and the latest digital marketing news and tips to help you drive your business. Our goal is to ensure we help improve your marketing and drive success.

At Onimod Global, we have endless experience and expertise when it comes to all things SEO, general social media advertising, and digital marketing. Got questions about how to optimize your search engine advertising or want to learn more about us? Contact us here today.

Why You Should Combine Social and SEA

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Are you a PPC connoisseur or a paid social media pro? Are you neither of these things and looking for more insight on how to develop a paid digital marketing strategy? You have definitely come to the right place, as Onimod Global experts are here to share insight on both types of paid digital advertising and where it makes sense for you to invest you ad dollar.

Reasons to combine SEA and social media advertising

Why should PPC and social media ads be combined and regarded as a unit? When you combine the social media activities with PPC, you activate double the power online. Simply put: it’s a great way to increase your brand awareness and generate new leads.

1. PPC is successful: Search engine advertising that is targeted can lead to website traffic and success in just a short period of time. Use this effect to make your social media channels not only grow in following, but also in conversions.

2. Control demographics and usage: Users’ demographics cannot be controlled accurately when only using search engines. One the other hand, social media channels contain a huge collection of personal information such as photos and demographics – it’s worth using these data for PPC as well.

The journey to paid digital advertising

The journey to the goal of your paid digital advertising success is most often anything but straightforward. This is a crucial point that should always be kept in mind during your strategy process. Through being strategic with a funnel ad campaign, your customers may very often come into contact with your brand before they decide to buy. Another important note is people may already know your brand from a variety of platforms and influencers and have become aware of you in a positive way. This potential circumstance makes them more likely to click on PPC ads.

Due to all social media channels such as Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest, have become indispensable in many people’s everyday lives. They therefore offer excellent opportunities for “advertising”. Not in the traditional sense, though, but in much more creative ad formats that are meant to look native to the platform being disguised among organic content.

The difference between social media ads and PPC

Social ads are ads created for and shared on all social media platforms. Depending on the platform, the ads appear on users’ news feeds and, ideally, users will become more familiar with your brand and convert. The clearly designed Facebook ad manager will guide you through the creation of a campaign in which you act strategically and define your goals in the first step. You can create campaigns for Facebook or for Instagram.

Are you currently directing traffic from your PPC clicks only to websites or shops? Yes, that would make the most sense, because you generate the most revenue. Try something different and you may be surprised on the result: promote your social media channels through PPC. For example, make relevant content for your consumers which will lead them to wanting to consume more of your organic content.

This is where all of the success comes into play: with all of these platforms. you build a relationship with your customers and strengthen the image of your brand. The purchase of your product is not yet in the foreground of many people, if they, for example, are not yet familiar (enough) with the brand. However, if you manage to turn these people into fans of your Instagram page, their initial interest in your brand may eventually grow into a decision to make a purchase.

Final thoughts

All in all, we recommend you to ensure their is a cohesiveness between your brand and organic content to your social media ads, and PPC advertising is just as important from a search engine perspective. In addition to paid digital advertising and other digital marketing tips, we will continue to share case studies and the latest digital marketing news and tips to help you drive your business. Our goal is to ensure we help improve your marketing and drive success.

At Onimod Global, we have endless experience and expertise when it comes to all things SEO, general social media advertising, and digital marketing. Got questions about how to develop a paid digital marketing strategy or want to learn more about us? Contact us here today.

 

3 Crucial SEO Tips for 2021

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Search engine optimization, SEO, by definition is: a strategy in digital marketing which aims to improve your ranking on search engines.

Sounds easy to conquer, but we all know it isn’t so simple. It’s extremely difficult to keep up with Google’s 500-600 algorithm updates annually. That means there is at least one update per day every year. Experts who dedicate their careers to unlocking the secret to search engine ranking optimization still are puzzled at the end of the day. Fear not, we are here to help guide you with the top 3 SEO tips for 2021 that will get you on the right track to ranking success.

1. Understand your website’s core vitals

Maybe you’ve never heard the phrase before, but the philosophy behind it is becoming more crucial to your SEO and ranking. In May of 2022, Google will roll out Page Experience, which is a brand new algorithm ranking pages based off of their “core web vital” scores. A brief overview of what to look out for here is: 

Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) – Measures page speed. This is the time it takes for a page’s main content to load. The ideal LCP is 2.5 seconds or faster.

First Input Delay (FID) – Measures page responsiveness. This is the time it takes for a page to become interactive. The ideal FID is less than 100 ms. 

Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) – Measures visual stability. This is the amount of unexpected layout shift of visual page content. The ideal CLS is less than .1.

2. Focus on featured snippets
If they aren’t already, featured snippets should be a priority to include in your SEO strategy for 2021. Also commonly referred to as the holy grail of search, featured snippets appear at the very top of search engine page results (SERP), or in position zero, in a rectangular box. You can’t technically “select” the content shown in a featured snippet, but you can optimize your content so it’s more likely to appear in a featured snippet. Here are a few recommendations.

Use questions: all content that you write needs to be composed with the user in mind. What would they search in Google in order to come across your content?

Long term keywords: the longer words in a search query, the higher chance it will return a featured snippet. Only 4.3% of single word keywords resulted in a featured snippet as compared to 17% of keywords made up of 5 words, and 55.5% of keywords made of 10 words.
Keep formats in mind: When it comes to featured snippets, there are four different formats: paragraph, list, table and video. While writing your content with the goal of achieving a featured snippet, keep these different formats in mind. Also remember, Google wants to display information easily and distinctly to searchers looking for a fast answer. So format for the speed reader.

3. Focus on user experience
 In 2021, user experience is more important than ever in terms of SEO. As mentioned in tip #1, the new focus on core web vitals is all about user experience. In addition to that, Google also takes into account bounce rate, dwell time, and click-through percentage. The goal is to have a user click on your result, spend time clicking on different pages, and spend at least 3 minutes on your site.

More From Onimod Global

As certified SEO experts, our team is here to assist your business with holistic digital marketing strategies including SEO, because our goal is to make you more sucessful. To get in contact for an audit on your digital presence, get in touch with us here.

Google Now Shares What Factors Impact Specific Rankings

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Google now shows why it ranked a specific search result. The new ‘About This Result’ feature shows searchers information about some of these most important factors used by Google Search to connect results to their queries. Read more

How to Improve Your Local Search Rankings on Google

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Do you feel like your business’s visibility on Google is lacking? If your business isn’t showing up for relevant searches in your area, it’s time to reevaluate your local SEO strategy, specifically your efforts on Google My Business. This is one of the simplest tools you can use to improve your local Google ranking and quickly. 

If you don’t already have a robust Google My Business strategy, here are some things you can do to up your game. 

1. Enter Complete Data

Businesses with complete and accurate information are easy to match up with the right search queries. This is why it’s crucial to consistently keep your information up to date, especially if you’re making changes to your business. You want users to be able to easily tell what you do, where you are and when they can visit. Be sure to always have your address, contact information, business category and attributes filled out on your profile and up to date. 

2. Verify Your Location 

Verifying your location will make it more likely you show up in Maps and Search on Google. The simplest way to verify your location is through a postcard. To do this, all you have to do is request Google to send you a postcard to your business address. Before you request, be sure you have the following steps completed: 

  1. You have a standard Google Account for your business. 
  2. You have a Business Profile. 
  3. You have a Google My Business account.
  4. You’ve claimed your Business Profile. 
  5. You’ve verified ownership of your business. 

They usually arrive within 2 weeks. Once you’ve received the postcard, you’ll notice a verification code. You’ll enter this into your Google My Business profile and your location will be verified. 

3. Keep Your Hours Accurate 

Accurate hours let customers know when you’re available and give them confidence you’ll be open if they take the time to travel to you. Accurate hours are also another factor Google uses in determining if your business is legitimate, ranking your relevancy for each query accordingly. Be sure to update your hours regularly, including when you open and close and if you have special hours for holidays or events. 

4. Manage and Respond to Reviews 

One of the most critical factors to online rankings are customer reviews. A large number of genuine reviews lets customers know you’re a real and reputable company. To grow your number of reviews, frequently ask for customer feedback through email, on social and in person. Be sure to link your Google My Business Profile so they know where to leave the review. Responding to reviews can be just as important as getting them. This shows you listen to your customers and value their feedback. Google also highly favors business with a large number of positive reviews when it comes to relevant searches. 

5. Add Photos

To showcase your goods and services, and to tell the story of your business, add photos to your Business Profile. Accurate and appealing pictures may also show shoppers that your business offers what they’re searching for. These images may also appear in Google search results if a user is searching for your products or about your industry. Thus, growing your brand awareness and increasing your overall reach. 

Final Thoughts

At Onimod Global, we’re a trusted Google Partner. Meaning we specialize in all Google Ad areas including: 

  • Search Advertising 
  • Mobile Advertising 
  • Video Advertising 
  • Display Advertising 
  • Shopping Advertising 

If you need assistance in any area of Google Ads, SEO or SEM in general, contact us today. 

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.