Tag Archive for: Digital Marketing Chicago

SEO Tips for Beginners

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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 On top of that much of the information is now either out-of-date or not relevant.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.

 

2018 Digital Marketing: Our Top 5 Trends

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The new year has officially arrived, and we bid farewell to 2018. As 2019 arrives, we have noticed a dramatic shift in the industry regarding social media, SEO, and a variety of other spaces within the digital marketing landscape. So many digital marketing trends have revolutionized the industry which will carry over to 2019. Which methods and platforms are most popular among marketers that will transition us into 2019? Take a look at some of the most notable digital marketing trends in 2018:

 

  1. Artificial Intelligence

    At the top of several lists is artificial intelligence and all of the doors it has opened for digital marketing. AI helps in a variety of ways: analyzing consumer behavior and search patterns, utilizing data from social media platforms and blog posts to help with customer’s discovery process, and much more! A great example of AI is chatbots frequently used in customer service. Gartner shares that 25% of customers will use this chatbot technology by 2020, which is a huge jump from the less than 2% in 2017.

  2. Personalize Your Marketing

    Contents, emails, products, and more! Personalizing was an extremely popular trend in 2018 and will continue to make your company stand out in 2019. With the mounds of data we have going into the new year, the process of personalization with your marketing will be easier than ever. Data such as purchase history, links clicked, and consumer behavior all aid custom content. In fact, 96% of marketers believe that personalization advances customer relationships.

  3. Video Marketing

    Single Grain shares some significant numbers that display the importance of incorporating video marketing into your 2019 marketing strategy:–  70% of consumers say that they have shared a brand’s video
    – 72% of businesses say video has improved their conversation rate
    – 52% of consumers say that watching product videos makes them more confident in online purchase decisions

    This goes far beyond YouTube. Your business can create this type of content on Facebook Live, share on Twitter, Instagram, or even LinkedIn. Live video specifically is gaining lots of popularity and will definitely put you one step ahead of competition in 2o19.

  4. Social Messaging Apps11 Digital Marketing Trends3
    This shows exactly how important it is to make your business available across social platforms. Similar to chatbots, your customer service team being available on these popular social messaging platforms will help increase customer loyalty by adding value to their experience with your business. Being easily accessible will only increase your success in 2019.
  5. Micro-Moments

    As termed by Google, micro-moments are a brand new consumer behavior. On average, people spend 3 hours and 35 minutes a day on their smartphones. This means that is more important than ever to have a clear and concise message to your consumer at the right time in the right place. More so, this must happen in a matter of seconds, or your potential consumer will lose interest. People prepare for every instance big or small; no one has time for surprises anymore. A great example of this is a restaurant having their menu, vegan options, wait-time, and other common queries all available when requested on a search engine.

More From Onimod Global

We’d like to thank you for being a part of 2018 journey and look forward to assisting you in 2019 with your digital marketing needs. We would love to work with you and help you optimize your digital marketing strategy.

To contact our experts or request a quote, please click here. We can’t wait to hear from you, Happy New Year!

Organic SEO For Plumbers

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SEO, or search engine optimization, is crucial to the success of any business in any industry. SEO refers to non-paid marketing techniques with the goal of increasing your search engine visibility and ranking high on the first page of search results for specific keywords. The plumbing industry can benefit from SEO in a variety of ways. Experts at Onimod Global are professionals in this space plus more, check out our case studies on a variety of industries!

The plumbing industry needs SEO work for a variety of reasons:

  • Cost Efficiency. This is the foundation of any marketing plan, it gives you the most value without costing any money.
  • Visibility. Competition in this area can be tough, as we know from working with several clients in this industry. With a good SEO strategy, your visibility will increase over a long period of time.
  • Sustainability. Organic search will last for over a long period of time, and it can establish your company as one that will constantly ranking on Google SERPs (search engine results pages).

 

Importance of Local SEO for Plumbing

The major purpose of the internet presence is to attract plenty of customers who will require your plumbing services. For the industry of plumbing, SEO is a very important element in terms of building up revenue and business growth. Since most plumbing operations are in specific areas, a strategy that is very efficient is to include keywords that will target local business in your area.

For example, if you had a plumbing company in Chicago, several blog posts and pages on your site should include phrases about being a plumbing company located in Chicago. Through that, customer lead generation is easy and fast.

 

More From Onimod Global

We would love to work with you and help you optimize your digital marketing strategy for your plumbing company. To contact our experts or request a quote, please click here. We can’t wait to hear from you!

How To Create Loyal Customers With Social Media Transparency

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Customer loyalty is a priority and goal for all companies in existence. How to create those loyal customers is much easier than you may think, and it all has to do with transparency. According to the social media company, Sprout Social, 86% of surveyed U.S. consumers think it is more important than ever for businesses to be transparent.

 

Customers are much more willing to show loyalty to companies that are consistent with being clear in communication, open, and honest. For example, an 89 percent of U.S. customers are willing to give a transparent brand a second chance after a bad experience, and 85 percent are willing to stick with them through a crisis. These astonishing numbers prove that transparency is key to business success.

 

Gaining Trust and Sales From Transparency

Customer loyalty will come with your ability to communicate the message of transparency in the most effective manner. Customers that also purchase from you only on occasion poses an opportunity to convert them into being a loyal customer.

Typically, organic brands are very transparent because that information in their ingredient lists is crucial to their brand message. If you take a look at Horizon, the organic milk brand, you can locate any of their organic farms on their website as well as seeing their manufacturing processes, stories about the farmers and shipment processes. This is all given directly on their website with 100% transparency, making them an elite brand that does millions of dollars in sales each year.

 

The Role Of Social Media

In this same report, 81 percent of the group consumers say that businesses must be transparent on social media. This is more than they expect out of politicians (79 percent), friends and family (66 percent) and even themselves (71 percent). This adds a significant amount of pressure to a brand’s plate making sure they are proactive with mistakes and responding to customers at all times.

 

Here is an example of the makeup brand rising in popularity daily, Morphe, disclosing a mistake in production via Twitter to all 526,000 of their followers. It is statements like this, in addition to publicly addressing customer concerns, that consumers expect from businesses.

 

As relationships are continuously built through social media channels between brands and consumers, people want business to be more open and honest than ever, especially in public settings. Marketing teams that accept this expectation and do their best to treat transparency as a mandatory business practice are the most likely to retain customers and increase sales in doing so. Long-term, transparency is a differentiating factor that will motivate consumers to stick with your brand through a difficult times and to remain loyal over time.

 

More From Onimod Global

We would love to work with you and help you optimize your social media strategy for any event your company is hosting. To contact our experts or request a quote, please click here. We can’t wait to hear from you!

 

4 Ways to Become a Superior Digital Marketer

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With the digital marketing industry continuing to expand, the field has become an intriguing job market for individuals seeking employment. According to Silicon Republic, “the digital economy was growing 10 times faster than the traditional economy which resulted in a skills gap of approximately 900,000 vacancies in 2015.” However, with the flux of digital marketers increasing this leads to heavier competition. So what are some ways to set yourself apart from the crowd and become a better digital marketer? This post will explore four ways to help a digital marketer stand out in their field.

1. Utilize Online Resources
There are thousands of free online resources to help digital marketers stay current on news, updates, and anything else important happening in the industry. Credible industry publications such as Search Engine Land, Forbes, Adweek, Search Engine Journal and others are excellent resources to enhance an individual’s knowledge regarding digital marketing. One major benefit to reading articles from these sources is that a serious time commitment is not required. This is something to throw into a routine during a morning commute to work or during lunch hours for example. Ultimately, it’s amazing how much can be learned from spending an hour of your day reading industry news to stay updated, and it will set yourself apart from others not taking advantage of these publications.

2. Attend Relevant Events and Conferences
Although attending a major digital marketing conference could be expensive, the opportunity to gain knowledge from respected industry professionals can’t be overlooked. Speakers at these events typically consist of professionals with years of experience who work for notable agencies. In addition to the numerous learning opportunities at conferences, they are also a great place to build connections with other professionals in the digital marketing industry. Having a large network of digital marketing connections is huge, and you never know what this can lead to in the future. Moreover, attending digital marketing conferences/events is more important than one may believe, and not every digital marketer is taking advantage of this.

3. Be Eager to Learn
In an extremely adaptive industry like digital marketing, having an eagerness to learn is essential. It’s cliche but the digital marketers who “want it more” and enjoy learning have a much better chance of success in a very competitive environment. According to the Digital Marketing Institute, “it’s easy for businesses to differentiate between candidates who have a willingness to learn compared to those along for the ride.” Therefore, it’s evident that digital marketing is an industry that requires plenty of passion and a willingness to succeed. The digital marketers who possess that quality will clearly stand out over those who don’t.

4. Gain Experience Early On
This one sounds obvious, but the earlier you gain hands on experience with digital marketing the better. Some digital marketers arrive to the game a lot later than others and this could be a huge setback. One benefit to experiencing the industry early on is the opportunity to learn from mistakes. All digital marketers make mistakes at some point in their careers and the earlier you can learn from them the better. Gaining experience doesn’t necessarily mean working for an agency as early as possible. Taking online digital marketing courses or experimenting with campaigns during your free time are both examples of gaining relevant experience. In the end, it’s important to realize that no one enters the digital marketing field as an expert. Take advantage of the several resources available to you to set yourself apart from other digital marketers in the industry.

Contact Us
For more information regarding digital marketing expertise, visit the Onimod Global Website. We provide weekly news updates on the latest in the world of digital marketing. Enjoy!

Why Digital Marketing Trends May Require You To Hire A Digital Marketing Agency

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The digital marketing world is ever fluid, always dynamic and never dull, especially to the ever growing need to grow that CMO constantly faces. This is in part due to the emergence of new trends that are fundamentally changing the way marketers and brands reach out to potential customers. This changing landscape is essentially urging all players to step outside their comfort zone in order to attract high quality leads.

Outside of their comfort zone, traditional digital marketers are faced with a series of challenging tasks. From understanding the need to market across cross-platform devices and channels, to running customer-segmentation based messaging campaigns, these and other digital marketing trends are defining the future of marketing.

While there are plenty of growth hacking techniques available to CMOs and other marketing leaders, it might make sense to rely on an occasional helping hand.

Indeed, to help make sense of marketing trends and to capitalize on what they may mean for your business, consider hiring a third-party digital marketing agency to meet the demands and deadlines of your digital marketing to-do list.

But why would a CMO need to use an external digital marketing agency? The following points should give you some insights.

1. Stay Industry-Relevant

For starters, digital marketing agencies must follow the latest developments across digital marketing trends on a regular basis. It is part of their job description. If certain agencies fail to grasp what is happening, changing or unfolding in their industry, they will cease to be relevant. This is especially important, as current digital trends indicate that effective marketing requires brands to reach their target audience while adopting advanced omnichannel strategies. While your eye is understandably on your company and the product, digital marketing agencies are committed to keeping you abreast of all the latest developments in marketing.

2. Better Industry Storytellers

While your marketing team may be working really hard to promote your product offering, digital marketing agencies are made up of experienced professionals that can provide tangible value in defining and spreading your brand’s appeal across leading industry players. This focus can help bring about real results that can be very beneficial to your company. For instance, if your chosen agency succeeds in creatively generating positive PR about your brand’s ability to meet trend-related demands, this will improve your company’s image and naturally, help you capitalize on many marketing opportunities.

Unless you have a massive overhead budget, it’s almost impossible to hire effectively the skillsets needed to capitalize on many digital marketing opportunities. The capable talent to execute the digital strategies is an inherent part of agency culture, one that needs to be stimulated by daily deep, creative exercises. Also, today in the competitive digital landscape, brands need to limit risk, reduce human resource efforts, and purchase results by an accountable agency.

Learn more about who we are and what our Digital Marketing experts can do for you today.

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H/T Forbes.