If you want to be successful, it’s important to stay up-to-date on what’s working and what’s not in the digital marketing world. Recently, I had the opportunity to be a guest co-host on SpinRadio with Michael Reynolds of SpinWeb. SpinRadio is a weekly program focused on inbound marketing and sales strategy.

If there’s one thing we’ve learned in our years of business as a digital marketing agency, it’s that we have to keep learning. The Internet is a constantly evolving marketplace. Search engine algorithms change regularly. Design standards change and keep getting better. The influence of social media and content marketing changes all the time.

I would like to recap and share some of the key topics that we discussed and how they apply to your website and/or marketing strategy.

1: Make sure your website is mobile-friendly

On April 21, Google changed the way they rank websites when a user does a search from a mobile device (called “mobilegeddon”). In short, if your website isn’t mobile-friendly—that is, if it doesn’t have a responsive design—it will rank lower when people are searching from a mobile device. If you don’t have a mobile-friendly website (and a surprising number of organizations still do not) you will soon see a decrease in traffic from Google.

    2: Focus on content first

    10600417_10153153891499596_1454375460046061279_n.png
    The problem with websites (via @_kud)
    Inbound marketing is all about the content. Strong, useful content is now the core of any good website marketing strategy. (To learn more, review our article “How Inbound Marketing Can Improve Your Customer Interactions.”) What we’ve found is that to create the most effective, engaging design, we need to know the content first.

    It’s important to take the time upfront to consider your site goals, what you want to communicate and calls to action. Then design around that to create a clear, powerful message for your audience. We recommend this concise Hubspot article, “Start Your Next Web Project with a content-first discovery Phase.”

    3: Understand the importance, power and truths of SEO

    Understanding what is true and not true in SEO is important for your inbound marketing strategy. SEO is not a new trend, but it continues to be an important part of digital marketing success.  Michael and I spent a good portion of the broadcast digging deeper into this excellent article from search engine expert Moz, “10 SEO Myths“:
    1. SEO is a scam
    2. Google will figure it out
    3. We did SEO once
    4. Link building is dead (again)
    5. I want to rank #1 for “magic keyword”
    6. Google hates SEO
    7. SEO is dead because Google Answers
    8. SEO is all tricks
    9. PageRank
    10. Social activity doesn’t affect SEO
    We explored each of these myths—statements that we’ve heard from some of our own clients—and discussed how important an ongoing investment in SEO really is.

    My personal favorite is #2 – Google will figure it out. The article says “No. No they friggin’ won’t.” which is a funny way to put it but true. Google is smart, but not magic. Building a website and doing nothing else is not enough.

    Ultimately, an investment in SEO is an ongoing commitment in the viability of your website. Audience engagement, content marketing, design updates, analytic report reviews … investing time and money in these things builds a stronger website and better results.

    How many people visit your lobby each week, maybe 100? How many people visit your website each week?
    The point is: for the majority of us, there are considerably more people visiting your website. 

    When people doubt the value of ongoing investments in their website, I often ask them to consider how much they spent to decorate and/or furnish their office lobby. With that in mind, think of how many people came to the office last month and saw that lobby versus how many people visited the website last month. Is the investment comparable? Your website deserves to be an important part of your marketing strategy because it is a 24/7 representation of your company.

    Is it time to review your website strategy?

    Whether you need a mobile-friendly redesign or help with a complete digital marketing strategy, TBH Creative can help you stay on top of Internet marketing trends. Learn more about our services.